Patient safety UK agenda

Each country within the UK has an active patient safety programme.

This resource will help you to:

We have also brought together some examples of initiatives from other countries that address the patient safety theme at International.

Overview

"To err is human. To cover up is unforgivable. To fail to learn is inexcusable." (Donaldson 2004, section 5).

Patient safety is a key theme of healthcare policy in the UK. Each country has sought to establish programmes of work that embed learning from the growing body of knowledge around the prevention of injury in healthcare settings.

The programmes pursue a range of goals but there are some that recur. One common aim is to fundamentally change the way health care organisations approach patient safety and break the cycle of blame that prevents change happening. A key component of this is to develop systems for proactively reporting and investigating error. One of the most ambitious of these, managed by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA), is the National Learning and Reporting Service operating in England and Wales (HSC Safety Forum 2011a; NPSA 2011a; NHS Scotland 2011; NHS Wales 2011).

Patient safety is a challenge to every healthcare system, regardless of how it is organised or funded. The willingness to learn from other systems has been a feature of work to date in the UK. Particularly influential has been the work of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) for example through the 100,000 Lives Campaign which developed into the 5 Million Lives Campaign (IHI 2011). 

Approaches to improving practice from the IHI have influenced the development of programmes across the UK such as the 1000+ Lives in Wales, which is building on an earlier campaign mentored by the IHI, and the work of the HSC Safety Forum (1000 Lives+ 2011; HSC Safety Forum 2011b). In Scotland the Scottish Patient Safety Programme is working in partnership with the IHI (Healthcare Improvement Scotland 2011).

Other high profile demonstration projects are using networking and campaign approaches. The Health Foundation uses a network which is based around the 18 sites which were all involved in the UK-wide Safer Patients Initiative to sustain the learning and impact from this initiative, and to test, develop and explore skills and practices (Health Foundation 2010). Patient Safety First, which was set up as a result of the Department of Health’s review (Department of Health 2006) and focussed on the implementation of five interventions, has completed its campaign phase and developed into a growing online community and a hub for patient safety programmes and resources (NPSA 2011b).

Resources providing further information about the UK agenda and activities in patient safety are available via the links at the top of this page.

References

All links last accessed on 11 November 2011.

Department of Health (2006) Safety first - A report for patients, clinicians and healthcare managers, London: The Department.

Donaldson, Sir Liam (2004) CMO England speaking at the launch of the World Alliance for Patient Safety in Washington DC on 27 October 2004. CMO quotes - Patient safety. Department of Health website.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland (n.d.) Scottish Patient Safety Programme. Healthcare Improvement Scotland website. 

Health Foundation (2010) Safer Patients Network. Health Foundation website. 

HSC Safety Forum (2011a) HSC Safety Forum website.

HSC Safety Forum (2011b) Improvement methodology. HSC Safety Forum website.

IHI (2011) What was the 5 Million Lives Campaign? IHI website.

NHS Scotland (2011) Scottish Patient Safety Programme. SPSP website.

NHS Wales (2011) 1000 Lives+ Campaign. 1000 Lives+ Campaign website.

NPSA (2011a) National Reporting and Learning Service. National Patient Safety Agency website.

NPSA (2011b) Patient Safety First 2008 to 2010: the campaign review. London: NPSA. Available to view on the Patient Safety First website.