Our focus on patient safety in 2012

I have just been listening to the radio coverage of the recent cruise ship disaster (the Costa Concordia), hearing the horrific stories from those on board and speculation about what happened to those yet to be found. We are all shocked by the event.

But are we as shocked by some of the stories we hear about patient experience and levels of safety in healthcare? Have we become too complacent? Perhaps we don’t even recognise that certain practice, processes and systems may be unsafe or allow staff to make mistakes all too easily?

And the financial crisis: will it divert attention away from improving patient safety or has it already? I suspect it has in some parts, with stories in the press of slash and burn management approaches and concerns raised by frontline staff in some organisations.

At the Health Foundation we’re committed to maintaining our focus on improving patient safety, placing more emphasis on it this year than ever before. We believe that it needs to remain a priority for all leaders, healthcare workers and policy leads, particularly during these cash strapped times. So what are we planning in 2012?

We will be speaking to a variety of people including patient groups, healthcare staff and leaders to gauge their concerns, to find out what they feel are the important issues and needs. We want to find out about projects that are showing results in this area and to see what other people are doing – this will help us to work out where we can have the greatest impact.

Later this year we will launch an ambitious network for safety – a major development that will provide a means for safety minded practitioners and leaders to connect, share and disseminate knowledge and practice in improving patient safety. It will focus on their priorities, rather than national targets, with targeted support. The network will have a dedicated website (supported by patient safety champions and including experts on call, webinars, learning tools and other resources) and an exciting events programme.

As ever, we will continue contributing to the knowledge around patient safety by generating insights from our Safer Clinical Systems programme, commissioning further research, and publishing a number of key reports. It’s also important for us to support other people’s efforts to make the healthcare system safer, so we will continue working with groups such as the Clinical Human Factors Group and supporting the Patient Safety Congress.

I’m really excited that, during 2012, we’re going to explore the pivotal issue of the patient and carer roles in improving safety. We will be looking for innovative ways to use patient experience, as well as actively involving patients in the redesign and safer management of their care.

Our new PRIMO tool collects staff views on where they feel practice may be risky or unsafe. We intend the tool to proactively identify where errors could occur before they happen (it also recognises the importance of listening to staff!). On the theme of innovation, the next round of our Shine programme will fund innovative ways of providing safer care.

I hope this gives you a flavour of the passion we have for improving patient safety and what we’ll be doing through 2012. It’s only a snapshot, so do sign up for our email newsletter to stay in touch or have a look through all our patient safety work.

We don’t want safety to fall down the agenda. We all need to maintain a focus on finding new ways to recognise and prevent unsafe care and make improvements at all levels of the system.

Jane is Assistant Director of Improvement Programmes at the Health Foundation.