The World Health Organisation theme for World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) 2020 is “Health Worker Safety: A Priority for Patient Safety”. Scotland has a long history of focusing on safety and improvement within healthcare. To reflect our integrated health and social care context our key messages for WPSD in Scotland this year are “Safe Staff, Safe Care” and “Speak up for staff safety”.

With the focus of WPSD this year on staff safety and its inherent link to the delivery of safe care which has been brought into sharp focus with COVID we are delighted to announce as part of our activities on the 17^th  September that Professor Michael West will be delivering a session on “The Courage of Compassion for High Quality Health and Care” as part of the QI Connect series.

Michael will answer the question: “What have we learned from the pandemic that can help us change health and care for our communities and staff?” Compassion has been core to our coping – between colleagues and between staff and communities. It is the most powerful intervention in health and care. To nurture cultures of compassion requires the courage of all to lead with compassion, focused on a vision of caring for all in our communities and for our staff.

This session, drawing on extensive research evidence, will explain in detail how we can effectively lead compassionately by addressing the workplace factors that undermine staff well-being and effectiveness. By meeting the core work needs of those who deliver care we can create climates and cultures of psychological safety in our health and care services.

Michael West is Senior Visiting Fellow at the King’s Fund, and Professor of Organizational Psychology at Lancaster University and has published 20 books and 200+ research papers.

We hope you will join us for what promises to be an engaging and informative session.

Register at the Eventbrite website