Investigating skills

4. Strategic awareness

Investigations are disruptive. You should be aware of the impact on the wider community, victims, and witnesses.

5. Innovative investigative style

The clues to a mystery can be found in many places. Instead of being confined to traditional approaches, lateral thinking might help you find several sources of truth. With new investigative methods and technologies developing every day, one should adopt a creative, integrative approach, incorporating new strategies wherever and whenever possible.

Investigators across all industries

TV shows like the BBC’s Line of Duty mean we often associate investigative skills with detective work. So it may come as a surprise that these skills are fundamental to a range of professions outside Scotland Yard. Let’s talk through a few examples.

Healthcare

Here in the UK, these skills are required both for the safety of patients and staff. The NHS regularly undergo internal reviews to ensure it’s operating as safely and efficiently as possible. We like to think we are always in safe hands when it comes to doctors but unfortunately, with the NHS being overstretched significantly in recent years and the high-level bureaucracy that comes with any large nationalised institution, health facilities are not free from scandal.

An affair that takes place within NHS-funded services or care and is deemed worthy of investigation is usually referred to as either a ‘significant event’, a ‘serious incident (SI)’ (‘serious incident requiring investigation (SIRI)’ or ‘serious untoward incident (SUI)’). The first refers to “any unintended or unexpected event” leading or having the propensity to lead to patient harm. The last three are often used interchangeably to describe an incident that resulted in an unexpected or avoidable death, a life-threatening injury or serious abuse.

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  All members of a healthcare team come together to constructively review an event through a Significant Event Audit (SEA) – a process in which individual occurrences are analysed in a systematic and detailed way to ascertain what can be learnt about the overall quality of care and to indicate any changes that might lead to future improvements.
  
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  Controlled Drug Accountable Officers use critical analyses to decide who it’s safe to give high-dose drugs to.
  
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  Case Investigators work with patients who have been diagnosed with an infectious disease, to determine who else they have come into contact with.