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eMed previously Babylon Health

Patient Safety

Our staff join Babylon because they want to improve healthcare around the globe, which means the principles of safer and more efficient healthcare are embedded in all the work we do.

We meet all relevant regulations in every country or territory where we operate

  • In the UK that means the CQC and NHS England regularly assess us for our clinical care, whilst our products meet UK and European requirements for medical devices, data protection and information security. Babylon has a certified Quality Management System (ISO 13485), certified Information governance (ISO 27001) and meets the European GDPR requirements. On top of that, we follow Clinical Risk Management best-practice principles from ISO 14971 and NHS Safety Standards DCB 0129 and DCB 0160.
  • The CQC rated Babylon as Outstanding for being Well-led as ‘the leadership, governance and culture were used to drive and improve the delivery of high-quality person-centred care and treatment’.

We have a Clinical Safety Team

  • Our dedicated and experienced team, led by a Clinical Safety Officer, includes Clinical Safety Risk Managers and Engineers. They are all trained in Risk Management and are fully qualified with live registrations.
  • Their work has been shared with authorities such as NHS England and Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group. In November 2018, NHS England reviewed Babylon's approach to Clinical Safety and Information Governance for Babylon’s core NHS services, stating 'Each safety case meets the standards required by the NHS and has been completed using a robust assessment methodology to a high standard'. The report can be found here.

Safety is the responsibility of every employee at Babylon

We have an official whistleblowing policy so at Babylon, whoever you are, you can easily raise a concern without any worries.

We only employ clinicians committed to safety

  • Including GPs, Therapists, Nurses, Pharmacists, Healthcare Assistants and Phlebotomists. We apply the same rigorous testing and suitability assessments to all of our clinicians. They have to be highly skilled at their job, but also excellent communicators.
  • They are all independently registered with professional bodies (the General Medical Council for doctors, the Nursing and Midwifery Council for nurses etc.) and have a professional obligation to highlight any concerns they may have about the safety of the service that they are delivering.

We support and train our teams

  • The CQC rated Babylon as Outstanding for being Well-led and ‘demonstrated an outstanding level of staff support, engagement and training’.
  • All of our staff undergo initial training and are constantly updating their knowledge throughout their time with us. We monitor this closely and ensure that everyone keeps up to date with the latest advice.
  • Our Support team takes safety very seriously. They are trained to assess how best to guide patients, and escalate any problems or concerns to clinicians quickly through our formal documented escalation process.

We have consistent monitoring, supervision and audit to maintain high quality assurance

  • We record and archive every video consultation for subsequent review by our Senior Clinical Team, to audit and learn from as necessary. Traditional general practice relies exclusively on a doctor’s recall, as described in their written notes. Our approach eliminates any uncertainty over what symptoms were discussed and what action was recommended.
  • Patients have access to the original consultation as well as the clinician's written notes, which are written in patient-friendly language rather than complex medical jargon. This means both parties have an instant note and recording, introducing a new level of clarity and transparency into consultations.
  • Patients are able to feed back about the service at every encounter, and we look at this in real-time to identify issues as soon as they occur.
  • Our bespoke audit toolkit benchmarks combines the ratings provided by our patients with the reviews from our senior team, giving us a very robust audit system down to the level of the individual clinician, surpassing standards in traditional primary care.
  • We have an Incident Management Process to ensure any issues raised are dealt with properly, irrespective of whether they have been raised by phone, email or social media etc.
  • All of this information feeds into our weekly Quality Assurance Meetings, helping us to share best practice and support those clinicians who may need help to improve.

We build detailed governance protocols for our evolving technology

  • Our Clinical Artificial Intelligence Governance merges statutory, regulatory and professional best practice to ensure our AI helps make it easier for our users to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Read more here.
  • We are working with the World Health Organisation and others to develop better ways of governing and assessing technology like ours.

We are transparent and welcome feedback

  • We work with experts from across the global community of clinical colleagues and consider feedback wherever it comes from.