Improving patient safety

Central to our work in healthcare service and system transformation is our award-winning support for improving patient safety.

Our patient safety work programme is informed by the NHS Patient Safety Strategy, and the National Patient Safety Improvement Programme (known as NatPatSIP). To find out more about each programme, please click the relevant link:

• Managing Deterioration
• Maternity and Neonatal
• Medicines Safety
• Mental Health
• System Safety – which focuses on the new NHS Patient Safety Incident Response Framework.
• Adoption and Spread – this workstream closed in March 2022.

Our goal is to ensure that patients in the West of England can be confident that care is safe for patients based on a culture of openness, collaboration, continuous learning and quality improvement.

Patient Safety Collaborative

Our patient safety work is delivered by the West of England Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC). We host and coordinate the PSC. Our PSC is made up of all the NHS providers and commissioners across the region, including hospitals, mental health and community organisations, the ambulance service, primary care and clinical commissioning groups. It brings together local patients and healthcare staff, all driven by a shared vision to bring about system-wide improvements to ensure the safety and wellbeing of people in the care of our health services.

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Our impact

Our work is highly regarded with many projects started in the region having been selected for national adoption and spread including PReCePT, the National Early Warning Score, Emergency Laparotomy Collaborative and Emergency Department Safety Checklist.

• Publications: The work of the PSC has been evaluated resulting in several publications including Age and Ageing, BMJ Open Quality, BMJ Emergency Medicine Journal, Resuscitation, BMJ Open, Nursing Standard, Healthcare Manager, and Clinical Finance Journal.
• Our awards include:
  • Best National/ Regional Project (BAPM Gopi Menon Awards 2022: PERIPrem)
  • Maternity and Midwifery Services Initiative of the Year (HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2019: PReCePT);
  • Award for Deteriorating Patients and Rapid Response Systems (HSJ Patient Safety Awards 2018: System-wide implementation of NEWS);
  • Best Patient Safety Initiative in A&E (HSJ Patient Safety Awards, 2017) and most proudly
  • BMJ Patient Safety team of the year (2018).
• We were shortlisted for six 2021 Patient Safety HSJ Awards including:
  • Learning Disabilities Initiative of the Year  (the West of England Learning Disabilities Collaborative)
  • Patient Safety Education and Training Award (videos to support the training of carers to identify deterioration and communicate concern)
  • Patient Safety Pilot Project of the Year (PERIPrem – Perinatal Excellence to Reduce Injury in Premature Birth)
  • Quality Improvement Initiative of the Year (PreCePT – Prevention of Cerebral Palsy in PreTerm Labour)
• We were shortlisted for three HSJ Awards in 2020:
  • System Leadership Initiative of the Year (for ReSPECT),
  • Workforce initiative of the year (for PReCePT) and
  • our Medical Director Anne Pullyblank was shortlisted for Clinical Leader of the Year.

To read more about our impact, browse our patient safety case studies.

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