Taking safety on board The board's role in patient safety

This thought paper covers the actions board members should take to ensure patients are safe in their organisation.

The authors argue that, while the ‘safety buck’ stops with the board, an effective board should direct its efforts towards building organisational commitment and learning, rather than driving compliance.

The Health Foundation is calling for a stepwise change in thinking about patient safety. This paper forms part of a programme of work we are undertaking to help answer the question 'How do we know care is safe?' We want to build on a culture that has focused almost exclusively on measuring past harm and enhance this to incorporate approaches to measurement that also establish the presence of safety.