Patient safety is a priority for our health care system. Our vision for patient safety is that all patients receive the safest possible care.
This means
- making patients partners in their care,
- promoting an open and transparent patient safety culture, and
- learning from near misses and mistakes
No patient expects to be harmed in health care. We all expect and hope that our treatment and our family’s treatment or care will be successful and safe. Yet we know that in health facilities all over the world, patients do suffer harm and it is sometimes avoidable. We must do all we can to minimise risks to help avoid patient safety problems
We are making progress in lots of areas. We have implemented many patient safety initiatives in recent years resulting in measurable improvements. Many of these have been in response to serious patient safety incidents.
Some of these initiatives include
Patient Safety Strategy 2019 to 2024
In Ireland, as many as 1 in 8 patients suffer harm while using healthcare services. Maintaining the highest levels of safety is a fundamental priority for Board of the HSE. Launched in December 2019 was the first Board Patient Safety Strategy.
Since then, the Patient Safety Programme are engaging with services and staff throughout the HSE. This is to put in place the objectives and the commitments of the Strategy. They have:
- Engagement with Patients and Patient Representatives
- Initial communication and engagement with Community Healthcare and Hospital Group Management Teams and QPS Staff
- Commencement of a project to develop a Patient Safety Knowledge and Skills Guide
- Commencement of a project to develop strategies and processes for patient safety surveillance
- Collaboration with leads for each of the thirteen Patient Safety Priority Areas to develop a cohesive approach to improving patient safety and to the funding of patient safety improvements
- Progression of the recruitment of 26 QPS Staff as per the Service Plan 2020
- Inclusion of the Patient Safety Strategy in to the forthcoming Corporate Plan
Some of the actions in the Patient Safety Strategy are:
- To develop a patient safety culture throughout the organisation that is fair and open
- Implement and enhance governance structures that improve accountability at every level of the organisation with patient safety as the core focus
- Establish a National Patient Safety Programme within the office of the Chief Clinical Officer
- Improve systems and processes that listen to, engage with and involve patients in their own care, and in the design, delivery, evaluation and improvement of health care services.
- Involve staff in the identification and improvement of patient safety issues including reporting of incidents, learning from the causes of incidents, and learning from examples of good practice and successful initiatives
- Improve the capacity and capability of the organisation for patient safety, including supports, resources, education and training, and patient safety surveillance systems and methodologies
- Publishing the strategy is another important step toward reducing incidents of patient harm in our health service. The next step in this process is looking at how the strategy will be implemented across the organisation
Read a summary of the Patient Safety Strategy
Read the full Patient Safety Strategy 2019 – 2024
Implementing the strategy
The newly established Patient Safety Programme will identify and build on excellent patient safety improvement work already being undertaken throughout the HSE and has already commenced work on implementation such as developing a high level implementation plan and a communications plan in addition to engaging with various stakeholders throughout the service. The Patient Safety Programme will commence a consultation process which will seek how best to support services in implementing the strategy.
Next steps to roll-out the implementation of the strategy:
- Establish governance structures to support the Patient Safety Programme and the implementation of the Strategy
- Plan out the approach that will be taken for implementation
- Develop a communication and engagement strategy to align with implementation
- Involve patient and staff in the implementation planning
- Begin a service mapping and gap analysis
- Identify strategies, supports and resources need to enhance capacity and capability
- Develop the Five Year Patient Safety Strategy Implementation Plan
- Advance patient safety improvements within prioritised patient safety areas
Examples of Patient Safety Improvement Initiatives
Across the Irish healthcare system there is strong commitment to improving the safety and quality of care. The National Clinical Programmes are central to improvements to the safety and quality of healthcare delivery. Patient safety and quality improvement initiatives are being implemented across the organisation including.
The Quality Assurance and Verification Team patient safety initiatives include:
- A project to promote shared learning following patient safety incidents
- The development of Patient safety Stories
- Let’s Discuss Programmes
- Publication of Complaint Casebooks
The National Quality Improvement Team are co-designing and providing support to apply sustainable improvements in many of targeted safety areas including:
- The Pressure Ulcer to Zero and Falls Collaboratives
- Deteriorating patient e.g. QI Learning set with Mayo University hospital and Mercy Cork
- Medications safety e.g. further roll of Know Check Ask Campaign to encourage people to keep a list of medicines
- QI for Health Care Boards The National Quality Improvement Team
- Commencing in 2020, QI partnerships in the areas of Frailty, Ambulance services and Health Care associated infections
Support for services
A Strategy for Change
To support and monitor the implementation of the Strategy, a Patient Safety Programme and Team have been established. Patient Representatives will be involved at all stages of the Programme. Patient safety improvement actions will be contained in our National Service Plan and service level Operational Plans. The Patient Safety Programme Team will provide leadership, oversight, co-ordination and monitoring of the implementation of the Strategy.
More information
Contact the Patient Safety Programme
Quality Assurance and Verification, Office of the Chief Clinical Officer
Health Service Executive, Dr. Steeven’s Hospital, Dublin 8, DO8W2A8
Phone:01 6352619, national.qav@hse.ie
How we can play our part to improve patient safety?
- Engage patients as partners in their care
- Involve patients in the design, planning and delivery of our health service
- Communicate clearly with patients about their care
- Speak up if you see something unsafe
- Introduce yourself to patients and their family
- Mind your personal health and wellbeing and look out for colleagues who need support
- Improve the culture of your workplace by practising the 9 behaviours of Values in Action
- Clean your hands properly when caring for patients to reduce risk of infection
- Recognise, highlight and build on existing good patient safety practice in your workplace
- Improve the quality and timeliness of incident reviews and learn from patient safety incidents
- Know about the commons harm that happen in your clinical workplace
- If you lead a team, create a secure environment for people to discuss their concerns
- Keep good patient records and notes
- Talk to patients about any changes to their medicines or care and encourage them to keep an up-to-date list of the medications they are taking
Related topics
HSE Patient Safety Strategy 2019-2024
HSE Patient Safety Strategy Summary 2019-2024
Involving patients in the design, planning and delivery of health care
Communicating clearly with patients
Healthcare communication programme
HSE Open disclosure policy
Say #HelloMyNameis
Staff health and wellbeing
Values in Action
RESIST hand hygiene programme
From Safety I to Safety II
Quality Improvement Division
Healthcare Records Management, Safe Patient Care Code of practice for healthcare records management
Know, Check, Ask
