EDITOR’S CHOICE

Most health care training is about caring for and treating individual patients. Much less time is spent on “generic” skills that are also essential for safe and effective care. Communication skills, included in most curriculums, focus on the patient–professional interface. Communication within teams is important too and failures here put patients at unnecessary risk. Lingard et al (see p 330) found failures of communication in one third of an operation room’s team exchanges and one third of these jeopardised patient care. Crucial generic skills such as team training should be mandatory. It is time to review training and make sure that professionals have the essential skills for providing safe and effective care. A supplement to this issue explores the use of simulation and team training in health care. A classic paper, from 1969 (see p 395), re-published in this issue, is a reminder that these ideas are not new. It is time that use …