Hiwendy micklewright Welcome to the hub newsletter.
World Patient Safety Day activity
The latest blog in our World Patient Safety Day series is from hub topic lead, Risa Mallory, and Karen Padilla, the staff lead of the Women and Heart Network at Global Heart Hub, who discuss women’s heart health inequities from both an individual advocate’s and advocacy organisation’s perspective. They explain why the conversation must move beyond awareness alone into actions.
If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at our Patient Safety Learning poster which we have created to support you with your World Patient Safety Day activities. We'd love to hear how you are using the poster and what activities you are planning for the day.
Save the dates
Join us in London on 8 October or Leeds on 2 November for our bespoke course: Practical Thematic Analysis for Patient Safety.
Our facilitators, Dr Helen Vosper and Claire Cox, will combine deep subject matter expertise with systems thinking and human factors principles to help you turn patient safety data into actionable learning and improvement. The highly practical and evidence informed course will continue once you return to the workplace with support to give you the confidence to put what you've learned into practice.
In the latest episode of our 'Speaking up for patient safety' series, Helen Hughes and Peter Duffy speak to Bethany Carter. Beth discusses her career from military nursing and infection control to becoming a Freedom to Speak Up Guardian and later a senior leader at the National Guardian’s Office. She reflects on how organisational culture determines whether staff feel safe to raise concerns, drawing on both positive and negative personal experiences of speaking up.
On the 18 August 2026 the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) published a new report looking at patient safety risks related to advice and guidance (A&G) services in the NHS in England. Patient Safety Learning sets out its reflections on the report’s findings.
Paediatric patient safety investigations
hub topic lead Peter Sidgwick is a Consultant in Paediatric Intensive Care at Great Ormond Street Hospital. In a short video forthe hub he talks about how to make feedback more meaningful for families involved in paediatric patient safety investigations.
We all know that AI is transforming healthcare, but what does that mean for patient safety?
Patient Safety Learning are launching our inaugural roundtable event in London on Tuesday 6 October 2026 and we’re inviting you to join the conversation.
the hub has members from all around the world, and many are helping to shape the hub by sharing their patient safety insights through blogs, interviews, tools and practical examples. In our International Top picks, we showcase some of our international contributions, and celebrate our ever-growing network of people who are passionate about reducing avoidable harm.
In December 2022, Dylan Cope, a 9 year old boy, died of sepsis after being discharged from hospital. A coroner found the boy's death “would have been avoided if he had not been erroneously discharged”, and said what happened "amounts to a gross failure of basic care”. Dylan’s mum Corinne argues that GP referrals for urgent care need to be appropriately escalated and that widespread system learning from individual preventable deaths is critical to saving lives.
Clive Flashman, Patient Safety Learning's Chief Digital Officer, considers questions posed by participants at a recent panel discussion exploring the patient safety risks associated with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in healthcare.
In this blog, Darren Kilroy shares the challenges he experienced of moving a trust to a new electronic patient record (EPR) system. He shares the safety issues that this change brought, what he learnt from the experience and suggestions of actions to address the identified safety risks.
In this blog, Madeline Bolton-Smith, an epilepsy patient advocate, shares her experience of epilepsy as a child and suggests three patient safety lessons that could help reduce some of the unnecessary emotional harm that many young people with epilepsy experience.
The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has published a new quality standard for perioperative care in adults. This standard covers the care of adults around surgery during the preoperative (before), intraoperative (during) and postoperative (after) periods. In this blog, Dr Tim Jackson shares reflections on this new standard and highlights where it currently does not join up with the National Safety Standards for Invasive Procedures (NatSSIPs) 2.
In his latest blog, hub topic lead Martin Fletcher discusses the factors that contribute to a better and more ‘worthwhile’ experience of a regulatory complaints process. He highlights the importance of regular, clear communication and setting expectations early to reduce anxiety, build trust and help participants understand what the regulator can and cannot do.
This HSSIB report is the third in a series considering the self-administration of insulin by people with diabetes mellitus (diabetes) in community settings.
The ASPiH conference 2026 explores the theme Simulation: The Next Era - examining how simulation is evolving as a driver of education, system learning and healthcare transformation.
As complexity increases across health and social care, simulation must move beyond isolated training events to become a strategic tool for innovation, co-production, workforce development and system-level change. This theme invites delegates to explore how simulation can be intentionally designed, delivered and evaluated to generate meaningful impact at micro, meso and macro levels.
By bringing together diverse perspectives across professions, sectors and disciplines, ASPiH 2026 will showcase emerging practice, rigorous scholarship and bold ideas shaping the future of simulation in the UK and internationally. Attending ASPiH 2026 offers access to internationally recognised speakers, cutting-edge sessions, hands-on workshops, valuable networking opportunities and the UK’s largest dedicated simulation exhibition.
Recent Patient Safety Management Network meetings have included presentations on safety improvement plans, delayed diagnosis of cancer and what good looks like for the Patient Safety Partner in an organisation.
Karen Exell, NETS Project Officer from NHS England, gave a presentation on using the National Education and Training Survey (NETS), a tool for highlighting areas of improvement and good practice.
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