Listening, leading and learning for safer care in Wales. This will be achieved through three foundational pillars which run consistently throughout and shape the direction of the Plan:

Listening

Listening goes beyond hearing — it amplifies the voices of patients, staff and partners to shape safer care and turn feedback into actionable insight. Embedding co-production ensures lived and learned experiences drive meaningful improvements. By focusing on prevention, tackling harm and inequalities early and creating transparent feedback loops, this approach builds trust, strengthens relationships and ensures the healthcare system reflects what matters most to the people it serves.

Leadership

Visible, accountable leadership makes patient safety a core strategic priority. Leaders create systems and cultures that foster transparency, learning and reliability, while empowering multi-disciplinary teams to identify risks, act quickly and prevent harm through continuous improvement.

Learning

Proactive, systematic use of real-time insights and data —coupled with collaborative reflection—to drive continuous redesign of healthcare systems, foster transparency and feedback and co-create improvements in safety. Incorporating a learning approach that not only detects errors and implements corrective actions but also embodies ongoing, collective and system-wide learning that embeds safety into everyday healthcare practice.

National Clinical Safety Priorities

The Plan sets out six strategic national clinical safety priorities for specific focus identified by healthcare organisations and Welsh Government:

• Acute physical deterioration
• Deconditioning in the community
• Health care associated infections
• Improving safety in secondary care mental health services
• People with learning disabilities and neurodivergence
• Maternity and neonatal services

Summary of the Plan

• Section 1 – Never Events list
• Section 2 – Reporting processes
• Section 3 – Guidance on specific incident types
• Section 4 – Joint investigation process
• Section 5 – Safety II guidance
• Section 6 – Commissioned services flowchart – NRI reporting.

• Reflect a stronger focus on supporting organisations to drive their improvements rather than individual national programmes, and co-designing our work with them.
• Provide tailored support for senior leaders, managers and frontline staff to address their quality and safety challenges in the context of the pandemic and recent policy changes.
• Enable organisations to improve quality and safety, as defined by their service users, families, carers and workforce, and engage them in aspects of care at all levels and in all settings across the continuum of care including primary care.
• Support organisations to rebalance care away from hospitals and focus on preventing and reducing pre- and post-COVID19 harms across the continuum of care.
• Address the technical, social and cultural elements required to spread and scale improvements in any setting.

By working in partnership with Improvement Cymru organisations will be supported to embed the Quality Act.

They are also launching a new safety programme called ‘Safe Care Together’ which will provide nationally coordinated, locally delivered support to organisations across the continuum of care.

Safe Care Together, will enable health boards and trusts to achieve evidence based clinical and operational safety improvements, helping them to embed the Health and Social Care Act 2020. Our work will be co-developed with organisations, offering bespoke support to help them to create the conditions, build the capability and make the connections for improvement to flourish. The programme is open to all health boards and trusts across Wale.