Dear Richard,
"It may be worth remembering that the WHO Patient Safety Charter contains two patient rights related to information:
Right 7: The right to information, education, and shared decision making.
Right 8: The patient's right to access their medical records."
Yes indeed. You prompted me to review the 10 rights
https://iris.who.int/server/api/core/bitstreams/a48952b5-c8d5-4842-9e68-...
I note that the first three are:
1. Right to timely, effective and appropriate care 2. Right to safe health care processes and practices
3. Right to qualified and competent health workers
This is partly an equity issue. For example, those with money may have access to the above, while those without may not.
But fundamentally I see it as a health systems issue. Every health professional should be empowered with their basic needs in order to deliver safe, timely, effective and appropriate care. Information is a key component of the basic needs of all healthcare providers. These needs may be summarised as SEISMIC: Skills, Equipment, Information, Systems, Medicines, Incentives, Communication facilities. https://www.hifa.org/about-hifa/hifa-universal-health-coverage-and-human...
As we have been saying on HIFA for many years, the greatest patient safety issue is not errors or miscommunication, but a pervasive failure of the health system to adequately empower health workers.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org