Communicating about how the safety and quality of care are regulated

The quality and safety of health care in Australia is carefully prescribed and monitored, or, to put this in one word, healthcare quality and safety are regulated. Regulation involves the use of a variety of approaches to steer the flow of events and to control risk (Ayers &: Braithwaite, 1992; Healy, 2011). Thus, regulation draws on everything from persuasion (for example, best practice advice: 'It is best to ...') to coercion (that is, mandatory practice: 'You must ...'). Regulation is therefore a tool for communicating with health professionals about how patient safety can be or must be achieved. Regulation also has special relevance to and consequences for how health professionals and health services communicate with one another, and how they communicate with their patients. Why does health care need to be regulated, and why can't we rely on healthcare professionals to regulate themselves? The main reasons why patient safety is regulated are to protect the public from harm occasioned by professional practices that fail to meet national standards, to align health professional behaviours with developments and changes in healthcare systems, and to ensure the health professions constantly improve their performance and that of health service providers (Healy, 20ll).