Failing to learn? The NHS is losing its capacity for system-wide safety investigation (11 August 2025)

Summary

Published in July 2025, Dr Penny Dash’s Review of patient safety across the health and care landscape made a number of recommendations intended to streamline and consolidate patient safety functions in England. One of these was that the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB), currently a independent arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care, should have its functions transferred into the Care Quality Commission (CQC), though continue to operate as a discrete branch within the regulator.

In this article Carl Macrae argues that this change risks potentially risks setting back progress in the systematic improvement of quality and safety, removing the health system’s nascent capacity for independent system-wide safety investigation.

Content

You can read the full article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine here.

Related reading

• Review of patient safety across the health and care landscape (7 July 2025)
• Review of patient safety across the health and care landscape: Patient Safety Learning's response (15 July 2025)
• Suzette Woodward's opinion piece on the Patient Safety Review by Dr Penny Dash