World Patient Safety Day 2020
This year's World Health Organisation (WHO) World Patient Safety Day was on 17 September 2020 and we added Scotland's voice to this international awareness campaign.
The inter-relationship between staff safety and patient safety was the theme. The WHO's slogan was 'Safe health workers, Safe patients'. The WHO appealed for urgent and sustainable actions by all to recognise and invest in the safety of staff as a priority for safety as a whole.
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the huge challenges health and care workers are facing globally – increased risk of healthcare associated infections, accidents, stigma, illness and death. Working in stressful environments exacerbates risks to the physical and mental health and safety of staff, making them more prone to errors that might lead to harm.
Safe Staff, Safe Care
The safety of people receiving and delivering care is paramount in Scotland's health and care system. In the context of COVID-19 and health and social care integration, our campaign message in Scotland was #SafeStaffSafeCare.
Join in
To get involved with the campaign, you could:
- make a leadership commitment to #SafeStaffSafeCare. View the resources page for more details
- register for our QI Connect session on 17 September with Professor Michael West, who will share his reflections about compassionate leadership
- follow us on Twitter @online_his and use #SafeStaffSafeCare
Be inspired
Exploring ideas, insights and examples of positive emerging practice from across health, social care and housing in Scotland. These organisations recognised that safe staff equates with safe care and came up with a range of inspiring initiatives to enhance staff wellbeing.
Safety is one of our strategic priorities
Healthcare Improvement Scotland's Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) is a unique national initiative that aims to improve the safety and reliability of healthcare and reduce harm, whenever care is delivered.
Robbie Pearson, Healthcare Improvement Scotland's Chief Executive reflected on Scotland’s patient safety journey and looked ahead to a more holistic approach to safety in the future in his blog, The pursuit of quality: a healthcare journey. We also shared other leadership commitments from across Scotland's health and social care services.
In addition, at this time of significant and complex change, we're designing the Essentials of Safe Care for 2020 to ensure safe care for every person, within every system, every time. Reliably implementing the Essentials of Safe Care is fundamental to how services are planned and delivered.
The Essentials of Safe Care provide a set of evidence based guidance for the safe delivery of care in all health and social care settings, and focus on four areas:
- Person-centred care
- Process
- Leadership
- Culture and communication.
The four design groups aim to publish first drafts by the beginning of October 2020.
