Does improving safety culture affect patient outcomes? Evidence scan (The Health Foundation, November 2011)

Summary

Safety culture refers to the way patient safety is thought about, structured and implemented in an organisation. Safety climate is a subset of this, focused on staff attitudes about patient safety.

In recent years, a great deal of research has explored ways to measure safety culture and safety climate in health care. There is a growing emphasis on interventions to improve organisational safety culture and staff attitudes towards safety. It is assumed that improving safety culture will directly or indirectly affect patient outcomes. This evidence scan examines whether there is any empirical evidence to support this assumption.