News

Our first bespoke training for 2024 will take place in April when we travel to Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to deliver three days of bespoke face-to-face training to all the managers of this trust. The training will cover staff responsiveness and working with families with confidence, using Duty of Candour well, having difficult conversations with distressed patients and families, engaging well with people who have been part of an incident in the spirit of PSIRF, and lots more. We’re very excited to deliver this training and work with this organisation for the first time. Staff from this …

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Making Families Count member Trevor Stevens spoke to Marina Cantacuzino as part of her BBC Sounds series “Forgiveness – Stories from the Front Line”, which has also been shared on Radio 4. If you haven’t heard this programme yet, I strongly recommend it to you. It’s powerful and humbling though if you’ve lost a loved one to suicide, you might find it a upsetting.  Trevor talks so movingly about his lovely daughter Tobi and about why he chose afterwards to engage constructively with the trust who were caring for Tobi at the time of her death.  You can access the …

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This year, Making Families Count have been asked to speak at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Annual Conference on 26 March in Birmingham. Rosi Reed will be speaking as part of a longer session on the use and implementation of Martha’s Rule and how we can improve the way clinicians work with families of young patients, particularly when the patient’s condition is deteriorating. Rosi’s presentation will focus on why clinicians sometimes fail to engage well with families, the barriers to good engagement, and how we can overcome them. In typical MFC style, Rosi will be using real-life …

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Making Families Count are pleased to announce that we have two new members, Trevor Stevens and Sue Willgoss, and our new members have already been busy working with MFC. Trevor has written pieces for our blog and been a speaker at several MFC webinars. Sue has been working with MFC members Jan Sunman and Stephen Habgood on our Autism training. We welcome both Trevor and Sue and look forward to working with them both in the future. We have no doubt that they’ll bring even more knowledge, experience, passion and commitment to the work of Making Families Count in the future.

Rosi Reed of Making Families Count will be speaking at the Patient Safety Education Network on Friday 8 March. Her presentation is “The importance of establishing a meaningful relationship with families after a patient safety incident”, though she’ll also be talking about the work of Making Families Count and the training they offer around this.  Last year, Rosi was asked to speak at a similar event with a different group.  Chris Elson of PSEN was in the audience for that and then invited her to speak to their members, too. We find speaking at these type of events is a great way …

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HSJ are delighted to invite Rosi Reed of Making Families Count to join the HSJ Patient Safety Congress 2024 Advisory Board.  The core focus of the Advisory Board is to work with the organisers to recommend content and speakers for the congress and ensure that the event provides the best possible platform to support improvements in patient safety in the UK. We have valued Rosi’s insights, guidance, support, and on-site chairing of sessions at the Congress and very much look forward to working with her in her new capacity.

Making Families Count is delighted to announce that David Smith has joined us as a Director. David is a family member with lived experience who has taken part in several MFC webinars as a speaker. He is insightful, knowledgeable, and highly experienced, and we know he will be a fantastic addition to our team of Directors. David says: “I am delighted to have been invited to join the Board of MFC. I hope the knowledge I have gained through my involvement with NHS services in working with families and carers, together with a lifetime working in the field of governance, …

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Making Families Count have delivered a range of webinars in partnership with Autism Oxford to Surrey County Council. The webinars have been focused on suicide prevention and autism, delivering training to a range of health and education staff in the County. We have provided the focus on families with lived experience of both autism and suicide prevention, and members of Making Families Count have delivered presentations in those webinars. Autism Oxford provided information about autism and the impact this might have on those who are diagnosed or not and may be considered neurodivergent. We know that around 700,000 people may …

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To mark World Patient Safety Day, Making Families Count and several NHS trusts have published a new handbook entitled “Compassionate communication, meaningful engagement” for all NHS staff. The handbook aims to improve collaboration with patients, their families and carers following a patient safety event. You can get more information and download the handbook here.

On Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 September 2023, the 16th HSJ Patient Safety Congress is being held in Manchester. With over 1,000 people attending, including 143 NHS Trusts and 19 ICS, it’s looking as if this year’s congress is going to have the largest attendance to date.  For the first time, Making Families Count is an official charity partner and we will be running a stand in the exhibitor’s hall. If you’re going to be coming to the congress, please come by and see us – we’d be delighted to meet new and old friends! On Monday 18 September MFC will be …

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