To support you with your World Patient Safety Day activities, Patient Safety Learning has created a poster for you to print out and display within your organisation. We'd love to hear how you are using the poster and what activities you are planning for the day.
In our series of blogs for World Patient Safety Day, Parkinson’s UK explains how their new time critical medication dashboard is exposing the cost of missed and delayed medication, encouraging renewed focus on improvements and reducing avoidable harm.
NHS Quality Strategy
The Quality strategy for NHS-funded care in England has been published by NHS England on behalf of the National Quality Board (NQB), the principle national forum for quality across the healthcare system in England. Patient Safety Learning sets out its initial reflections on the new Quality Strategy.
Celebrating 5 years of the Patient Safety Management Network
This month marks the fifth anniversary of the Patient Safety Management Network (PSMN)—a significant milestone for a community that has grown into a vital space for connection, shared learning and peer support across the patient safety landscape. Recent research offers important insights into how networks like this support those working in patient safety and how learning is translated into action.
Are you working in patient safety and interested in joining the PSMN? You can join by signing up to the hub today. When putting in your details, please tick ‘Patient Safety Management Network’ in the ‘Join a private group’ section
When care pathways fragment
The Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) has recently published a report summarising a rapid investigation focused on patient safety issues within a regional care system. It looked specifically at a case where multiple organisations were involved in providing care across a care pathway. Patient Safety Learning’s Associate Director Claire Cox sets out reflections on the report’s findings.
Reasonable adjustment digital flag
Sebastian Gonzalez is our new hub topic lead for learning disabilities. In his first blog for the hub, Sebastian reflects on the lack of progress made in reducing health inequalities for people with a learning disability despite a number of reports and recommendations over the last few years. He highlights the new reasonable adjustment digital flag that is being implemented across the NHS and asks you to explore what your organisation is doing to implement the reasonable adjustment digital flag to help identify and support patients with a learning disability.
We often hear from hub members that they are interested in how others from different industries do things. In Top picks: Safety investigations in other industries, we have pulled together useful websites on safety and investigations from aviation, rail, nuclear, marine and defence.
On the 23 June 2025 the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced a rapid, national, independent investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services. This final report highlights key areas of concern, identifies barriers to delivering change and sets out a robust package of eight recommendations aimed at delivering long-term systemic and cultural transformation in maternity and neonatal care.
In operating theatres and other high pressure clinical environments, clear identification shouldn’t be a nice ‘extra’, it is a patient safety need. Danielle Checketts discusses why being able to identify staff by their names and roles is so important not only for the staff themselves but also patients. She explains how a simple idea, reusable hats with detachable name badges that can be removed before laundering, can support safety and teamwork.
hub Topic leader Aurora Todisco shares her new mini-guide, explaining how and when it can be used to help improve approaches to Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement.
Patients forget up to 80% of what is said in a consultation, and families often act on distorted second-hand accounts. This recall gap sits upstream of medication errors, missed red flags and weak informed consent. Olivier Desloges discusses how digital technology can help patients record their appointments and generate plain-language summaries they can share.
Francine Gilmore, a patient with vestibular migraine, has written a report in a personal capacity examining a patient safety gap where migraine prescribing overlaps with mental health risk. Drawing on Freedom of Information responses from 26 organisations and related evidence, the report identifies fragmented safeguards, unclear ownership and potential barriers to suitable treatment for clinically complex patients. Francine shares her experience, the findings from her report and the actions she would like to see taken.
Clare Collins, from Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, tells us how her Trust has aimed to improve patient safety though a project to remove caffeinated drinks. Clare shares their journey and what they have learned about implementation, engagement, organisational readiness and sustainability.
"Innovation in health is not finished when the technology works. It is finished when the evidence says it is safe, effective and reaching the people it was built for." In a new blog, Muhammad Abid shares what building an innovative healthcare app taught him about patient safety.
Martha's Rule represents one of the most significant patient safety initiatives introduced across English NHS trusts in recent years. Designed by NHS England to ensure that patients, families and staff can raise concerns about deterioration and receive an appropriate response, Martha’s Rule aims to strengthen communication, support earlier recognition of deterioration and amplify patient and family voices.
In this webinar, researchers from the NIHR Policy Research Unit Quality Safety Outcomes of Health and Social Care (NIHR QSO PRU) will share key interim findings from the formative evaluation of Martha’s Rule, drawing on in-depth ethnographic research, involving interviews, observations, and documentary analysis undertaken across three NHS pilot sites, as well as public survey data (collected in partnership with Picker and YouGov). The session will explore how organisations have implemented Martha's Rule within different local contexts, the opportunities it has created for improving communication and collaborative care, and the practical challenges encountered during implementation.
Attendees will gain insight into the realities of implementing complex safety interventions at scale, the importance of learning during implementation, and how robust evaluation can support evidence-informed policy, practice and continuous improvement.
This is a joint webinar hosted by Patient Safety Learning in collaboration with NIHR SafetyNet – The Patient Safety Research Collaboration Network.
Recent Patient Safety Management Network meetings have included presentations on how to de-frazzle your NHS job, thematic analysis, a PSII, transformative simulation and safety management systems.
At this month's Patient Safety Partners Network meeting there was a presentation on SEIPS (Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety) framework.
The Patient Safety Education Network July meeting was an open discussion on teaching Safety II and the importance of organisational culture, staff psychological safety, and patient and family involvement.
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