We published the following report on Friday, 15 December 2006: "Safety First: A Report for Patients, Clinicians and Healthcare Managers".

The report follows the review of the current organisational arrangements that support patient safety and was commissioned by the chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson. It is a response to the issues raised in the National Audit Office's report on the patient safety programme for the national health service and the need to revisit these arrangements with a view to accelerating the pace of change in this area.

During the last five years, much has been done to raise awareness in our own health system on the human and financial toll that results from medical errors. There has been significant progress. All NHS trusts have established reporting systems and are beginning to learn from adverse events that affect the safety of patients.

The report makes a number of recommendations that aim to ensure responsibility for patient safety is adopted at all levels of the healthcare system. It recommends ways of developing organisational capacity at a local level and refocusing efforts to enable frontline managers and healthcare professionals to deliver safer healthcare. The recommendations aim to build on what has been achieved to improve patient safety in the national health service. Specifically, it recommends:

firmly embedding safety as a priority for the NHS at all levels of the healthcare system;

the establishment of a national forum to harness the skills and expertise of a number of stakeholders in delivering the patient safety agenda;

a national campaign to engage and motivate clinical staff to address patient safety issues;

the national patient safety agency to refocus on the national reporting and learning system and to re-engineer it to make it easier for frontline staff to use;

the establishment of patient safety action teams to provide support to frontline staff; and

the active involvement of patients and their families in promoting patient safety, and greater support to patients when things go wrong.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wms/?id=2006-12-18a.122WS.2