Summary:

Many serious patient safety incidents in the NHS occur not because of incorrect treatment, but because critical information is lost or misunderstood during handovers between teams, departments, or shifts.

Handovers happen at some of the most vulnerable points in care — ambulance to A&E, A&E to wards, shift changes, and discharge to community care. Despite this being a well-recognised risk, there is no consistently enforced, nationally auditable standard for NHS handovers.

This creates avoidable risk for patients and places unfair pressure on frontline staff operating in high-stress environments.

What We Are Asking For

We call on NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to introduce clear, nationally consistent safeguards, including:

• National minimum standards for critical handover information
• Proportionate, auditable confirmation that key risks were communicated
• Anonymous reporting and review of handover-related near misses
• Clear accountability at handover points
• Timely publication of corrective actions when failures are identified

Why This Matters

This petition is not about blaming clinicians or staff. It is about system design. Clear handover standards:

• Reduce preventable harm
• Protect staff from unfair individual blame
• Improve learning from near misses
• Strengthen public trust in patient safety

If national standards already exist, they should be clearly documented and auditable. If they do not, the reasons should be explained transparently.

Preventable harm should not be accepted as inevitable.

About REASON

REASON stands for Required Explanations And Standards Of Notice — a public-interest initiative focused on transparency, process, and prevention in public systems.

We ask UK Parliament to require NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care to review current NHS handover procedures and publish whether nationally auditable standards exist, or explain why they do not.