Patient Safety Zone

Dr Ailsa Howie (NES Clinical Lead for Handover Education) explains the importance of Structured Handover. Following this there are links to resources you can use to run a Structured Handover educational session in your organisation. Finally, there is a short Structured Handover education programme that you can complete that focusses on two areas of healthcare. 

Patient information communicated during handover is inadequate for the task. Communication failure leads to uncertainty in decisions in patient care inefficient, suboptimal care and patient harm. Handover is defined as - "the transfer of professional responsibility and accountability for some or all aspects of the care of a patient or group of patients, to another person or professional group on a temporary or permanent basis".