Poor handover between doctors, nurses and multidisciplinary teams is a common cause of error in hospitals, and is a preventable cause of patient harm.
To help improve handover practices, The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) has produced a toolkit to provide a framework for standardisation of clinical handover practice, audit and monitoring of the process, and defining accountability and responsibilities in the process. The toolkit defines the principles behind good handover practice, what the handover framework should contain, and the specific elements that need to be carried out to avoid mistakes.
