Professional confusion

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

Like all those involved in healthcare I take delirium very seriously. I share in the collective determination to improve our approach, understanding and care of those experiencing this serious condition.

To improve it is important that critical thinking is given room.

This post is about the validated 4AT Rapid Assessment Test for Delirium:

In a recent medical educational lecture organised by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, the 4AT was described as a “screening” test.

One of the authors of the 4AT Rapid Assessment Test described it recently as a “screening tool”:

There seems to be a lack of consistency in the stated purpose of this test/tool. Has this test/tool been validated for screening or has it been validated for assessment? This is an important scientific and ethical matter in terms of how this test/tool may be both validated and implemented

NHS Scotland – it should not take courage to care

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

On the 17th July 2017, the Scottish Government announced an “Enhanced service for NHS Scotland staff”

The Scottish Government began this announcement stating that:

“Staff in Scotland’s health service will continue to benefit from external support should they have any concerns about patient safety or malpractice”

From 1 August, the NHS Scotland Confidential Alert Line will be re-branded as the Whistleblowing Alert and Advice Services for NHS Scotland (AALS).

This was reported in the Scotsman of the 17th July 2017:

The Scottish Government confirm the enhancements that have been made:

Some personal thoughts:

I have never been a “whistleblower”. I have however raised concerns relating to patient wellbeing and safety in NHS Scotland, and in particular for our older generation. I share the view of Sir Robert Francis that “freedom to speak up” is a better and more encompassing term.

My experience of trying my best to put patients first in NHS Scotland has left me with an interest in this matter and I have followed developments over several years now.

My concern is that this “enhanced service” has taken little account of the evidence presented to the Scottish Parliament from a wide range of individuals and professional bodies, including Sir Robert Francis.

Lifeboat NHS from omphalos on Vimeo.

The “enhanced” service will still not be able to independently deal with any concerns raised and so can offer only to “pass concerns on to the appropriate Health Board or scrutiny body for further investigation”. In practice this will be either to the NHS Board the employee works with or to Healthcare Improvement Scotland which is neither independent of Government nor of any of Scotland’s 23 other NHS Boards.

It worries me that senior Scottish Government officials continue to use words such as “grievance” or “pursuers” when talking about those who are trying to put patients first in NHS Scotland. It seems that the Scottish Government are as quick as any of us may be to label individuals. This “expanded service” has been re-labelled in a positive way when the opposite has happened to many of us who have raised concerns about patient care.

In summary:

I feel that this is a disappointing outcome given the determination of the Scottish Parliament, and the Health and Sport Committee in particular, to ensure that there is freedom in NHS Scotland to speak up and put patients first.

I would suggest that despite this “enhanced service” that it is still going to take a great deal of courage to care in NHS Scotland:

Courage to care from omphalos on Vimeo.

Improvement goggles

Posted on July 17, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

What follows are three slides taken from a talk given by Dr Brian Robson, Executive Clinical Director, Healthcare Improvement Scotland and IHI Fellow, given at the Edinburgh International Conference of Medicine in September 2016:

I most certainly agree that culture is important. But what kind of culture? Is it healthy just to follow one? In this case the Institute of Healthcare Improvement, Boston.

The “Improvement Goggles”, it would seem, come as part of the “toolkit”?

As a doctor who is passionate about improving care it matters to me that I follow science that does not risk being pre-determined.

It is important that there is philosophical depth to the approaches that we take to healthcare.

I understand the overwhelmingly good intentions of all those involved in “improvement science”, however I would suggest that we should carefully consider the potential benefits and harms of a most determined “one organisation” approach that starts and ends with reductionist and mechanical algorithms.

‘How to Improve’

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

The Nuffield Trust has recently published “Learning from Scotland’s NHS”. This report was based on a select group of “30 senior leaders and experts from Scottish health and care”.

One of the primary “learning points” of this report was that Scotland should be considered as “the model of how to improve healthcare across the British isles”. What is not made clear in this report is that the improvement methodology that Scotland has embraced was introduced from the USA not by “30 senior leaders” but by three:

Derek Feeley, President of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and former Director General for NHS Scotland
Professor Jason Leitch, who is a Dental practitioner, IHI Fellow and National Clinical Director of Healthcare Quality and Strategy (Scottish Government)
Dr Brian Robson, IHI Fellow and Clinical Director of Healthcare Improvement Scotland

The “30 senior leaders and experts” would seem to be “marking their own homework”.

A few personal thoughts:

I am a passionate about science but am of the view that passion should not pre-determine scientific method and process.

I have previously argued why it is unhelpful to pre-determine science as “improvement”.

I fully welcome a coordinated approach to improving healthcare.

I worry about the inherent reductionism that is the basis of IHI “improvement science”

IHI promotes learning to healthcare based upon the experience of Industry (mechanical engineering). This may work well for less complex interactional processes, such as Hospital Acquired Infection. However healthcare is rarely linear (it is more often Bayesian) and reductionist interventions (however well intentioned) can cause harm.

I have found that Healthcare Improvement Scotland (IHI) does not routinely include ethical considerations in its approach to “improvement science”.

In summary:

I would suggest that it would have been more accurate (evidence based) for the Nuffield Trust report to have been titled: “Learning from the USA”.

I welcome all learning and from all reaches of the globe. I also seek improvement. But as a philosopher and NHS doctor (of 25 years) I worry about any one-system approach.

Science needs to consider culture, ethics, narrative, and the experience of being.

“How to Improve” needs to consider the voices of people and place. It should not just be the voices of the “senior leaders and experts from Scottish health and care”.

freedom to speak

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

The Director General for NHS Scotland:

  Peter's experience of the Director General for NHS Scotland

The Clinical Director of Healthcare Improvement Scotland:

     Peter's experience of the Clinical Director of HIS

The Director of Health and Social Care Integration:

Peter's experience of Director of Health & Social Care Integration

In my determination to put patients first I have been treated poorly.

These highly paid officials seem to be beyond accountability:

[I have always openly acknowledged that my view is no more important than any other. I am always careful to be clear in what cannot be said with any certainty. I am fully aware of my weaknesses. I absolutely refute any charge that I am “vexatious”. I do not hold grievances. What matters to me is truth and fairness. I have found that the same cannot always be said of those in genuine positions of power]:

It can take courage to care. To resist the threats to your career and the misnaming:

Such abuse of power is not new:

You are invited to join me for this protest:

Early detection: “We need critical thinking”

Posted on June 11, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

The following analysis: “Surge in publications on early detection” was recently published in the BMJ. The authors concluded that “we need more critical thinking and more studies that specifically target both benefits and harms of early detection”:

The authors of this analysis will no doubt welcome the following response as a good example of critical thinking. This reply was submitted by Robert Steele (Independent Chair of the UK National Screening Committee); Anne Mackie (Director of Screening, Public Health England); John Marshall and Zeenat Mauthoor (both PHE Screening)

Submissions such as this reinforce my view that the criteria and principles that apply to screening must also be applied to early detection and “case finding”.

Quality Improvement and ethics

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Snow-Leavis

Response by Dr Sian F Gordon and Dr Peter J Gordon, 4 June 2017

This Acute Perspective by Dr David Oliver has our interest, in part because we all embarked on our career in medicine around the same time.We very much share Dr Oliver’s advocacy for “the actions and engagement of frontline practitioners and the real world context in which they work” and agree that these “are critical to success.”

We would like to contribute in the spirit of critical thinking regarding the place of ethics in Quality Improvement (QI).

Dr Oliver states that QI can deliver “tangible outcomes” and that it has “a methodological and theoretical rigour and peer community of its own”.

As far back as 2007 Brent et al identified that “ethical issues arise in QI because attempts to improve quality may inadvertently cause harm, waste scarce resources, or affect some patients unfairly.”

Dr Oliver states that “ethical approval is less burdensome” for QI. We are of the view that ethics must be one of the necessary starting principles for any QI work and would argue that any attempt, however well intentioned, to demote ethics from this role might result in outcomes that may not be described as “improvement”.

Reductionism – truly, madly, deeply

Posted on November 24, 2016 by Snow-Leavis

On Friday the 25th of November 2016 I gave a talk for the Scottish Philosophy and Psychiatry Special Interest Group.

My subject was “Improvement Science”.

The following is based on the slides and the four short films that I presented.

My talk was entitled:
001-improvement-science The meeting was held at the Golden Lion Hotel, Stirling:I started the day off:
I gave these declarations:

I explained to the audience that like Dr Rev I M Jolly I can be overly pessimistic:

The dictionary definition of ‘Improvement’:

The dictionary definition of ‘Science’:

My concern is any pre-determinism to science:

The Health Foundation have considered Improvement Science: this is from 2011:

Many different terms are used including “QI” for “Quality Improvement”:

This is where improvement science began, in Boston, Massachusetts:

The Founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) was Don Berwick:

The first description of this movement in Britain goes back to 1992 by Dr Godlee:

Fifteen years later, Dr Godlee, Editor of the BMJ, said this:
015-improvement-science

Only last month the BMJ briefly interviewed Don Berwick:

IHI describes improvement science as being based on a “simple, effective tool”:

This tool was developed from the work of an American engineer, W. A. Deming:

The “Model for Improvement” Tool [TM] is described by IHI as a “simple, yet powerful tool”:

The current President and CEO of IHI is Derek Feeley:

Up until 2013, Derek Feeley was Chief Executive [Director General] for NHS Scotland:

In April 2013 Derek Feeley resigned from NHS Scotland:

22nd February 2015 it was reported: “The astonishing and largely hidden influence of an American private healthcare giant at the heart of Scotland’s NHS”:

Dr Brian Robson, Executive Clinical Director for Healthcare Improvement Scotland [HIS] is an “IHI Fellow”:

Professor Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director for the Scottish Government is an “IHI Fellow”:
026-improvement-science

Might we be facing the biggest change to healthcare in Scotland since the NHS began?

Improvement science is moving quickly and widely across Scotland:

This “Masterclass 1” for Board members cost £146,837:
028-improvement-science

An NHS Board member commented after the Masterclass:

Healthcare Improvement Scotland is one organisation with a very wide remit over NHS Scotland and it works closely with the Scottish Government:

Nine cohorts of Safety Fellows and National Improvers have so far been trained following IHI methodology:
032-improvement-science

I was reminded of the current enthusiasm for improvement science when the Convener of a recent Scottish Parliament Committee meeting said of targets (another approach enthusiastically taken by NHS Scotland):

What is the place of ethics in Improvement Science?

In 2007 the Hastings Centre, USA, looked into this in some depth:

The Hastings Centre argue that Improvement science cannot ignore ethics:
036-improvement-science

In 2011 the Health Foundation, UK, produced this “Evidence Scan”:

The Health Foundation commented that “improvement science is just emerging”:

The Evidence Scan found a “real paucity of evidence about the field of improvement science”:

I would also suggest that there is a real paucity of philosophy about the field of improvement science:

The Health Foundation did find papers on the conceptual nature of Improvement Science but concluded that:

Mary Midgley is a philosopher now aged 95 years who is widely respected for her ethical considerations:

Chapter 7 of her book “Heart and Mind: The Varieties of Moral Experience” begins:

Mary Midgley is concerned about the overuse of reductionist tests in medicine stating that:

This film is about the potential consequences of inappropriate reductionism:

Leon Eisenberg has written many papers about this subject. He argues that reductionism should not be “abandoned” but that we must keep sight of where such an approach is scientifically useful and also where it is inappropriate:

In the Hastings Report, Margaret O’Kane asks:

In my view the answer to this question is YES. I am hopeful that the National Improvers recruited to NHS Scotland would agree:

As an NHS doctor I have seen unintentional harm brought about by National improvement work in Scotland. This related to a “Screening Tool” that was introduced across Scotland as part of this work. I found that the unintended consequences of the use of the following tool included implications for patients’ autonomy and the risk of over treatment:
048-improvement-science

Both the Hasting Group and the Health Foundation are of the view that improvement science cannot separate itself from the ethical requirements of research:

This article published in February 2016 argues that individual “rights transcend all aspects of Improvement science”

The following is a verbatim representation of a conversation held by National Improvers working in NHS Scotland:

In November 2016 Professor Joshi, also a psychiatrist outlined his concerns about reductionism in a published letter to the BMJ:

In this short film the mechanical language of healthcare improvers is considered:

Professor John Bruce was a Moral Philosopher in Edinburgh University in the 18th century. He built this temple, the “Temple of Decision”, in the grounds of his home by Falkland Palace so that he could consider his thesis:

Professor John Bruce did not succeed in his endeavour. His Temple however stood for many years:

But it eventually collapsed and his endeavour to “reduce the science of morals to the same certainty that attends other sciences” collapsed with it.

Any search of Healthcare Improvement Scotland for “ethics” finds this result:

This film is about more up-to-date buildings – the enthusiasm for which was based on improvement science: The Red Road flats in Glasgow:

                         Post-script:

The following is an edited clip of the evidence given to the Scottish Parliament by Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) on the 31st January 2017:

The full session can be watched here

The Official Report can be accessed here

It is very difficult to challenge a powerful organisation

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Snow-Leavis

This week the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport welcomed a new report into management of frailty and delirium

This reminded me, that 6 months on, I do not recall having received an answer to this letter:

“OPAC tools are working”

Posted on May 11, 2015 by Snow-Leavis

It is over a year since I last wrote about delirium. Being aware that the new Care Standards for older people in hospital were to be published this month I had a look on the Healthcare Improvement Scotland web platform for these new standards. As yet these standards have not been published, but I did notice the news that “OPAC tools are working”. I followed the links, read the supporting material, and watched all the associated films:

[The costs of films commissioned from the private sector by NHS 
Healthcare Improvement Scotland has been over £51,000 from 
January 2014 to February 2015]

A lot has happened in acute care settings for Scotland’s elders since I last wrote. It is wonderful to see in these films such compassion and dedication to care amongst the healthcare teams: from allied health professionals, nurses and doctors. I agree with Professor Jason Leitch that this demonstrates a caring culture.

It was some years ago that I heard Professor MacLullich give a talk about delirium. I was inspired by his thoughtful presentation which outlined the distressing symptoms that can come with states of delirium and the associated increased risk of mortality.

In this post I will not be considering improvement work undertaken on “frailty”. In what follows I intend to further explore the Healthcare Improvement Scotland strapline: “OPAC tools are working” with particular reference to delirium.

In terms of “working”, only two key figures are given by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. The first confirms that there has been 95% “compliance” with “assessment tools” for delirium.

The other key figure demonstrates that length of hospital stay in orthopaedics for older people has been reduced since the introduction of “frailty and delirium assessment tools”:

In what follows the OPAC tools currently being used in hospitals across Scotland to “identify” delirium will be considered. Two specific issues continue to concern me:

(1) the risk of too great a reliance on any “brief” “tool” rather than this being part of an overall assessment; and
(2) the marginalisation of consent.

(1) Reliance on a “brief” “tool”:

The 4AT has been revised since I last wrote. It was previously described by its developers as “a new screening tool for delirium and cognitive impairment” (see below):

The latest version (at time of writing) is version 1.2. The developers “have decided to describe” the 4AT now as an “assessment test”:

As an “assessment test” the 4AT requires:

The 4AT “assessment test” is also noted for its:

The 4AT:

The four questions that comprise the AMT4 are as follows:

It is important to appreciate that the 4AT test is different from other tools for delirium as it incorporates the AMT4. The AMT4 is a screening tool for cognitive impairment alone. To explain further this test is in effect used to screen for dementia. This is an important point because there has been very wide debate about cognitive screening. Cognitive screening is recommended by neither the UK National Screening Committee nor NICE. Another point is that using brief tests for delirium and cognitive impairment at the same time is an approach novel to the 4AT.

Given that the 4AT test incorporates a test of cognition it is relevant to consider whether our cognitive function can so easily be encapsulated in a “very brief” test. The 95 year old philosopher, Mary Midgley, has said this about “tests”:

Mary Midgley then goes on to say:

Cognitive ageing has become an area of great interest since Professor Lawrence Whalley of Aberdeen University began research in this area and some of his findings are summarised in his book, the Ageing Brain.

Professor Whalley reminds us that the brain is such an incredible biological wonder. Each of us have 100 billion neurons in our brains, and whilst this may change with ageing, it is still the case that our neurons, even on our last day in life, amount to:

Recently this lead Editorial was published in the Lancet:

It repeats the reminder of Professor Whalley that:

To many it appears counter-intuitive that something so complex as human brain function can be reliably assessed in a test that takes less than 2 minutes. In a follow-up post I will look at the work currently being undertaken to evaluate the 4AT.

(2) Marginalisation of consent:
“Compliance” with the 4AT “assessment test” is being measured in Scotland by Healthcare Improvement Scotland. My concern here, that I have expressed before, is that such an approach marginalises the right of the individual to consent or otherwise to this assessment.

I have become aware through my own clinical practice that even brief cognitive tests can be distressing to patients and can leave them fearful (the following quote is from a patient undergoing a short cognitive screening test but not the 4AT):

Another reason to be concerned about consent is that our cognitive abilities tend to follow a parabolic distribution through life. It would be a mistake to disregard this when undertaking complex diagnostic considerations.

In March of this year the UK Supreme Court judged that it was for patients to decide whether the risks, benefits and alternative options of assessments or medical interventions have been adequately communicated:

Treatments may bring harms as well as benefits. This is why explanation of risk should be an ethical underpinning in our interactions with a patient.

The Scottish Delirium Association (SDA) has issued delirium pathways for use across NHS Scotland. The “OPAC tools” are generally the starting point in these pathways. The SDA Comprehensive pathway states very clearly:

This pathway outlines environmental and general measures, alongside medical and nursing approaches to manage delirium which has been identified using the 4AT test. If these measures are not in themselves sufficient to improve the state of delirium, the Comprehensive Pathway outlines further interventions:

041Tools

A recent audit of Haloperidol prescribing in NHS Scotland has confirmed the findings of the Scottish Government that in our acute hospitals prescribing of antipsychotics has been rising year on year.

To try to identify how much of this rise comes from prescribing for those aged 65 years and over, the 0.5mg capsules and 1mg/ml liquid haloperidol are likely to be indicative.

In one Scottish NHS Board (see table below), we find that haloperidol prescribing in those aged 65 years and over in the acute hospital has nearly doubled since cognitive screening was introduced and monitored at NHS Board level.

042Tools

This is a recent study published in the Lancet:

The authors of this study argued that:

Summary:
In these films Healthcare Improvement Scotland outlines that “OPAC assessment tools work, and are working in hospitals across Scotland”. There is no doubt that delirium is a condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality. It is also clear that we have a long way to go in understanding such a complex condition. Given this, my concerns about the over-reliance on brief tools used at outset and the marginalisation of consent are unchanged.

In a follow-up post I will look at the work currently being undertaken to evaluate the 4AT.

Update, 5th October 2016. The following was published on the 
front page of the Scotsman newspaper: 

"Mental health prescriptions hit ten-year high"

The figures are from the Scottish Government and can be accessed here.

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