Quality incident management

Please be reassured that I am not going to comment on the recent court case of gross negligent manslaughter in Hong Kong. But because we are moving into the ‘new normal’ after the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic, I think we should better equip ourselves in our capability and skills to handle incidents. This is a pragmatic approach because the painful reality is that incidents would not disappear from our practice. Healthcare (and surgical care in particular) is becoming increasingly complex. No matter how hard we try, somehow certain untoward events or incidents may happen to our patients. One good way to gain new insights into the management of clinical incidents would be to revise what have we learnt in the past. And let us look back into the 60s...