Thursday 17 September 2026 marks the seventh annual World Patient Safety Day. World Patient Safety Day aims to:

• increase public awareness and engagement
• enhance global understanding
• work towards global solidarity and concerted action by all countries and international partners to improve patient safety.

The theme of this year’s event is “Safe care for noncommunicable diseases”.[1]

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) tend to be of long duration and are the result of a combination of genetic, physiological, environmental and behavioural factors. Common types of NCDs include cardiovascular diseases (such as heart attacks and stroke), cancers, chronic respiratory diseases (such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma) and diabetes.

People of all age groups, regions and countries are affected by NCDs, although they are often associated with older age groups. NCDs disproportionately affect people in low- and middle-income countries, where nearly three quarters of global NCD deaths (32 million) occur.[2]

People living with NCDs can need care across multiple settings over long periods of time, with multiple points where safety risks can arise.

Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2026

• Raise global awareness of patient safety challenges associated with NCDs across the continuum of care through a primary health care approach while considering disease-related factors, health system challenges and determinants of health that may increase the risk of harm.
• Promote the meaningful engagement of people living with NCDs and communities, in identifying safety risks and co-developing solutions with health practitioners, organizational leaders and policy-makers. 
• Encourage stakeholders to integrate patient safety principles across NCD-related legislation, policies, strategies and programmes, with an emphasis on strengthening primary health care oriented health systems.
• Support health workers in strengthening patient safety practices such as safer diagnosis, medication safety and meaningful patient engagement.

Key messages

1. People living with NCDs are at increased risk of harm in health care. This risk is driven by the long-term and complex nature of NCDs, health system challenges such as fragmented care and broader factors that affect access to safe care, such as poverty and discrimination.
2. Risks must be addressed across the continuum of care and in daily life. Safety risks can arise at every stage, from prevention, early detection and diagnosis to treatment and long-term management, across health care settings, homes and communities.
3. Strong, integrated health systems and a supported health workforce are essential for safe care. Strengthening primary health care, supporting health workers and addressing barriers that affect access to safe care through multisectoral action, are key to reducing harm.
4. People living with NCDs must be partners in safe care. Meaningful engagement, learning from people with lived experience and supporting health literacy reduces harm and leads to safer, better-quality care.

Calls to action

People living with or at risk of NCDs and their caregivers - Stay informed. Stay engaged. Stay safe.

• Don't miss opportunities for prevention. Learn about NCD risk factors, participate in recommended screening and preventive care, and seek help early when you notice warning signs.
• Know your condition and safety risks. Understand your diagnosis, tests, treatments and possible sources of harm related to your condition. Follow basic safety practices such as hand hygiene and double-checking your medications.
• Know your rights and be an active partner in your care. Take part in health care discussions and decisions about your care. Ask questions, confirm your understanding and speak up if you have concerns or notice safety practices being missed.
• Be your own "information officer". Keep an accurate record of your symptoms, test results, medications and appointments, including when travelling or when away from home. Use tools like electronic records, reminders or trusted health apps to track your readings, medications, test results and appointments.
• Navigate transitions safely. Stay alert during "handover" moments between health practitioners and during referrals and discharge. Make sure you are clear about your medications, follow-up appointments and who to contact if your symptoms worsen. Follow up on your test results — "No news" is not always good news.
• Master your self-care. Know how to use your medications, medical devices and digital health tools correctly. Know your warning signs and when to seek help

Health practitioners - Make NCD care safe at every step.

• Prioritise meaningful engagement. Partner with people living with NCDs as expert team members. Support shared decision-making. Empower people living with NCDs to recognize risks, manage their care safely and identify warning signs that require action.
• Promote prevention and reduce risk. Identify and address modifiable risk factors, support healthy lifestyles and provide evidence-based preventive interventions.
• Ensure early detection and accurate diagnosis. Reduce delays, avoid missed or incorrect diagnoses by maintaining a high index of suspicion about NCD-related risks, and interpret tests carefully, especially in people with multiple conditions.
• Identify risks and prevent harm. Take proactive steps to prevent harm across the continuum of care, such as missed prevention opportunities, delayed or incorrect diagnoses, medication errors, procedural risks and device-related harm.
• Ensure continuity and coordination of care. Communicate clearly, manage transitions safely and maintain follow-up across health practitioners and settings.
• Learn and improve continuously. Report incidents, share good practices and contribute to a culture of safety and continuous improvement.

Health care facility managers -  Establish systems that enable safe NCD care

• Prevent harm through early action. Establish systems that support evidence-based preventive services and risk assessment, early detection, timely management and ongoing follow-up.
• Enforce rigorous safety standards. Standardize care and implement protocols to address the major sources of harm.
• Ensure continuity and coordination of care. Establish standardized processes for handovers, referrals and discharge across practitioners and health care settings.
• Embed meaningful engagement within facility governance. Involve people living with NCDs in facility boards, safety committees and the design of care processes.
• Support and enable the workforce. Provide training, resources and supportive working conditions. Foster teamwork and open communication between staff members.
• Use lived experience and data to improve care. Establish a safety culture, promote incident reporting by health workers and patients and use lived experience to drive continuous improvement.

Policy-makers and health care leaders - Embed safety in every NCD policy and programme.

• Integrate safety into NCD policies and legislation. Ensure safety is embedded in national strategies to deliver on commitments from the 2025 UN Political Declaration on NCDs.
• Promote prevention and early detection. Strengthen policies and programmes that support risk reduction, preventive services, screening and early detection of NCDs.
• Strengthen primary health care for safe NCD care. Build integrated, people-centred systems that provide continuous and coordinated care, and address barriers that prevent people from accessing safe NCD services.
• Ensure sustainable financing and financial protection. Mobilize and sustain resources and reduce financial barriers for accessing safe essential NCD services for all.
• Invest in a capable health workforce. Train, support and retain health workers with the competencies needed to deliver safe NCD care.
• Engage people with lived experience. Establish mechanisms to involve civil society in the design, delivery and accountability of NCD care.

Civil society organisations - Mobilise action for safer NCD care.

• Advocate for safer NCD care. Call for the prioritization of safety and quality in NCD policies, programmes and services.
• Strengthen health literacy and promote early action. Provide trusted information and practical support to help people understand NCD risks, recognize early signs, and seek timely screening and care.
• Support safe care in everyday life. Help people living with NCDs to follow their care safely, recognize risks such as medication errors or missed care, and identify warning signs that require action.
• Break down barriers and promote equity. Help identify and overcome barriers such as stigma, discrimination and low health literacy that may be preventing people from accessing safe care for NCDs.
• Empower people to speak up. Create a culture where people feel confident to ask questions, raise concerns and insist on being heard when they feel something is wrong with their care.
• Collaborate for safety. Represent people with lived experience in policy dialogue and work with health workers to co-create safer systems.

To support you with your World Patient Safety Day activities, Patient Safety Learning has created a poster for you to print out and display within your organisation.

Share your views and experiences on the hub

Do you have experiences or views around the theme of this year’s World Patient Safety Day that you would like to share? You can share your thoughts with us by commenting below (sign up here for free first), submitting a blog, or by emailing us at content@pslhub.org.

References

1. World Health Organization. Announcing World Patient Safety Day 2026 – Safe care for noncommunicable diseases. 30 March 2026.
2. World Health Organization. Noncommunicable diseases. 25 September 2025.

Related reading

Find out more about previous World Patient Safety Days in the blogs below:

• World Patient Safety Day 2025
• World Patient Safety Day 2024
• World Patient Safety Day 2023
• World Patient Safety Day 2022
• World Patient Safety Day 2021

This report sets out:

• How to implement the Global Smart Pharmacovigilance Strategy.
• How to approach measuring the uptake and impact of the Strategy.
• Examples of the application of its principles to case studies from Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Japan.

The strategy focuses on four aspects that countries need to consider when building or strengthening their pharmacovigilance systems:

1. Previous efforts, lessons learnt and existing pharmacovigilance resources - pharmacovigilance has advanced significantly since the launch of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring in 1968. It encourages building on this achievements.
2. Risk-based approach and prioritisation - in the context of limited resources, countries are encouraged to prioritize their pharmacovigilance efforts by focusing on: products of specific relevance to their settings (e.g. medicines for endemic conditions); safety data that are unlikely to be generated elsewhere; and active participation in global pharmacovigilance efforts for new products introduced simultaneously across high-, middle-, and low-income countries.
3. Work-sharing and reliance – encouraging countries to prioritise pharmacovigilance activities based on their available resources and regulatory capacity, and to tailor development plans accordingly. The principles of work-sharing and reliance are central to enabling this flexible, context-specific approach.
4. Anchoring pharmacovigilance in the overall regulatory system-strengthening efforts - for PV to be sustainable, the Strategy it must be integrated into the overall regulatory framework. 

Goals

• Goal 1 Engage children and families
• Goal 2 Enhance medication safety
• Goal 3 Improve diagnostic safety
• Goal 4 Prevent healthcare-associated infections (HAIs)
• Goal 5 Reduce risks for small and sick newborns

Whether you are a nurse, a doctor, a manager, or a patient safety or quality officer, these Goals are for you.

Read more about each goal and how to sign up and be part of the WHO movement for safer care.

Calls to action

WHO has also shared their calls to action and key messages for the following groups:

• Patients and caregivers - Be your child’s safety champion. Stay informed. Stay involved. Speak up.
• School-aged children (6+ years) - Be a patient safety star, speak up for your safety!
• Health practitioners - Deliver care that’s safe and child-centred.
• Health care facility managers - Make safe care the standard for every child, everywhere.
• Policy-makers and health care leaders - Invest in safe care for children. Save lives and resources.
• Teachers, educators and school health staff - Empower children to participate in their health care.
• Civil society organizations and advocacy groups - Raise awareness. Mobilize communities. Demand safe care for every child.

Read more calls to action for each group on the WHO website.

Further reading on the hub:

• Patient Safety Learning: World Patient Safety Day 2025
• Patient safety for babies and children: key resources
• World Patient Safety Day 2025 at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Welcome - from Belerta Malisi, Unit Head of Patient Safety and Quality of Care at WHO.

Setting the scene. Why Patient Safety Incident Reporting and Learning Systems (PSIRLS) are essential for delivering safe and high quality care - Sir Liam Donaldson, WHO Special Envoy for Patient Safety

1. Culture.
2. Data being reported.
3. Causal information and large numbers of contributory factors.
4. How to aggregate data, the reports and stories of harm, from the high volume of incidents. There are no international data standards to capture meaningful and actional aggregated reports, they are often vague.
5. Essential role of patients and families.

Panel 1 - Turning incidents into insights. Establishing strong patient safety learning systems - Sir Liam Donaldson, Dr Gaurav Loria, Dr Clara Russel and Ms Ronel Steinhobel..

Panel 2 - From vision to actions: Operationalising patient safety incident reporting - Sir Liam Donaldson, Andrew Murphy-Pittock, Ann-Marie O'Boyle, Dr Francesco Venneri, Professor Kok Hian Tan.

WHO guidance on Patient Safety Incident Reporting and Learning Systems status of PSIRLS implementation and challenges - Dr Irina Papieva, Dr Nikhil Gupta, Dr Belerta Maliqi

WHO Global Patient Safety Webinar Series: Patient Safety Incident Reporting and Learning Systems

Wednesday 17 September 2025 marks the sixth annual World Patient Safety Day. World Patient Safety Day aims to:

• increase public awareness and engagement
• enhance global understanding
• work towards global solidarity and action by World Health Organization (WHO) Member States to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.

The theme of this year’s event is “Safe care for every newborn and every child”.[1]

Ensuring safe care for patients is a fundamental priority, yet newborns and children remain especially vulnerable to patient safety risks. While the reported level of patient safety incidents relating to newborns and children receiving healthcare varies, studies suggest that adverse events occur across all care settings, with higher risks among critically ill children, particularly those in intensive care or requiring complex medical interventions. Some studies report rates as high as 91.6% in intensive care settings and up to 53.8% in general care settings.[2]

To bring attention this critical issue, “Safe care for every newborn and every child” has been selected as the theme for World Patient Safety Day 2025, emphasising the need for stronger measures to protect children from preventable harm. The Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 recognises paediatric and newborn safety across multiple strategic objectives, including designing safe clinical processes, strengthening health workforce competencies, engaging patients and families and establishing learning systems to prevent harm.

Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2025

Under the slogan “Patient safety from the start!”, WHO is calling for urgent action to eliminate avoidable harm in paediatric and newborn care. Addressing this challenge requires comprehensive efforts across key patient safety areas, such as safe childbirth and postnatal care, medication safety, diagnostic safety, immunisation safety, infection prevention and early recognition of clinical deterioration. World Patient Safety Day 2025 aims to drive meaningful improvements and reaffirm every child's right to safe and quality care.

As part of this, it has set four objectives:

1. Raise global awareness of safety risks in paediatric and newborn care in all health care settings, emphasising the specific needs of children, families and caregivers.
2. Mobilise governments, health care organizations, professional bodies and civil society to implement sustainable strategies for safer care for newborns and children as part of broader patient safety and quality initiatives.
3. Empower parents, caregivers and children in patient safety by promoting education, awareness and active participation in care.
4. Advocate for Strengthening research on patient safety in paediatric and newborn care.

You can find campaign materials from the WHO for the event here.

Calls to action and key messages

Patients and caregivers - Be your child’s safety champion. Stay informed. Stay involved. Speak up.

• Track and share: keep notes on symptoms, medications and appointments. Share everything with your health care team.
• Keep informed: learn about common medical conditions in children and what to watch out for.  Understand hospital safety protocols, such as handwashing and visitor restrictions.
• Have your say: take part in the decisions being taken about your child’s care.
• Ask and confirm: always ask about treatments. Double-check names, allergies and medications before interventions.
• Trust your gut: if something feels off, speak up. You know your child best.

School-aged children (6+ years) - Be a patient safety star, speak up for your safety!

• Speak up: tell an adult if you feel sick, are hurting, or if something feels wrong during your care. Try your best to describe what you’re feeling, like pain or tiredness.
• Stay safe during care: share your name, birthday and allergies with your doctor or nurse. Ask what your medicine is for. If you get a cut or scrape, ask how to keep it clean while it heals.
• Be a germ buster: wash your hands often. Cover your cough or sneeze with your elbow or a tissue.  It’s okay to remind others to do that, too.
• You can help:  if something doesn’t look or feel right, tell an adult.

Health practitioners - Deliver care that’s safe and child-centred.

• Tailor care to the child: adjust for age, weight and development. Verify a child’s identity before any intervention and check for allergies.
• Prevent harm: watch for the main causes of harm such as medication errors, health care-associated infections and diagnostic errors.
• Act early: spot signs of deterioration. Respond promptly.
• Partner with parents and children: communicate clearly. Listen actively. Encourage questions and involve them in the decision-making.
• Coordinate and learn: share information clearly across teams. Report incidents to improve care and contribute towards improvement efforts.

Health care facility managers - Make safe care the standard for every child, everywhere.

• Streamline safety: apply WHO quality of care standards. Establish core safety systems such as patient identification, safe medication, infection prevention, and care escalation.
• Support the workforce: ensure staff are trained in safe paediatric care skills. Foster teamwork, open communication and standardized care.
• Make care child-friendly: provide  appropriate child-friendly spaces and equipment.
• Use data to improve care: establish a safety culture. Support incident reporting by staff and caregivers. Track safety indicators and act on insights.

Policy-makers and health care leaders - Invest in safe care for children. Save lives and resources.

• Embed paediatric safety within policy: integrate safety into national health policies and strategies.
• Invest in safer care: build workforce capacity and equip facilities with the tools, training and infrastructure needed to keep children safe.
• Lead with data and learning: strengthen data systems. Promote a culture of safety and learning.
• Engage communities: involve civil society, patient advocates, child protection groups and educators in building safer systems and promoting patient safety in schools.

Teachers, educators and school health staff - Empower children to participate in their health care.

• Empower children: teach them to speak up, ask questions and share symptoms or concerns.
• Create safe spaces: listen with empathy. Reduce fear around health care.
• Promote safety education: partner with health workers. Build children’s hygiene habits, health literacy and awareness of patient safety.
• Practice and celebrate: recognize and praise children when they make safe health decisions, such as regular handwashing and coughing into the elbow.

Civil society organizations and advocacy groups - Raise awareness. Mobilize communities. Demand safe care for every child.

• Raise awareness: promote health literacy. Share clear, accessible information on patient safety risks and the prevention of harm.
• Promote equity: advocate for safe care in all settings, especially those in low-resourced, marginalized or humanitarian settings, where risks are greatest.
• Amplify voices: represent patients in health dialogues. Co-create safer systems with health workers.

Share your views and experiences on the hub

Do you have experiences or views around the theme of this year’s World Patient Safety Day that you would like to share? You can share your thoughts with us by commenting below (sign up here for free first), submitting a blog, or by emailing us at content@pslhub.org.

References

1. WHO. Announcing World Patient Safety Day 2025 – Patient safety from the start!, 18 March 2025.
2. Dillner P, Eggenschwiler LC, Rutjes AWS, Berg L, Musy SN, Simon M et al. Incidence and characteristics of adverse events in paediatric inpatient care: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Qual Saf. 2023;32:133–49. 

• Integrated health services Services designed and delivered with compassion address the needs of people. This requires compassion to be embedded in the full continuum of essential health services, from health promotion to disease prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and palliative care. Awareness of and empathy for human suffering across the life-course can drive action that optimises health services for individuals and populations. Integrating public health services and primary care enables compassion to guide decision-making and subsequent action that enhances overall population health, including in public health emergencies.
• Empowered people and communities Compassion enables people to see other people more fully, listen deeply and resonate with their humanity. From within this shared space of genuine connection and trust, co-developed community solutions and organisational policies can emerge in the health sector and beyond. Compassion empowers individuals, families and communities to optimise their health. Multisectoral policy and action Compassion demands collaboration across sectors to comprehensively address the health and well-being of the whole person and whole community. Whether in interdisciplinary partnership in a health system or allied efforts among multiple ministries, compassion urges people to work collectively and consistently for the well-being of all, to attend to suffering and to take action on broader determinants of health.

Key findings in this report included:

• A scaling up of implemented national action plans for quality and patient safety, including a demonstration of learning and continuous improvement of better practices, processes and outcomes, is needed in the majority of countries. Only one third of countries implemented both a national quality of care and patient safety action plan.
• Hospital accreditation systems are implemented in only a minority of countries, hindered by a limited availability of evidence, particularly on their cost-effectiveness.
• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) plans are widely available in countries, but ample opportunities remain to combat AMR. The majority of countries (79%) have implemented an AMR plan, but persistent disparities in AMR prevalence for Escherichia coli (E. coli) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) remain across the region.
• Patient or public representation in national health governance is nearly non-existent, with only 13% of countries using this policy mechanism.
• Health misinformation prevention plans are absent in nearly all countries. Only four countries reported the use of a health misinformation plan. Such plans are important because they allow countries to deal effectively with infodemics during emergencies, including disease outbreaks, as well as with behaviours related to immunization adherence and noncommunicable diseases.
• The scarcity of the health and care workforce has significant consequences for the delivery of high-quality care.
• A limited number of countries have a national approved priority/essential medical devices list. Data show that only 22 countries have a national list of approved priority/essential devices.
• Electronic health records (EHR) are implemented in a low number of countries, jeopardizing the effective uptake of quality improvement interventions. Less than three quarters of countries (70%) reported having implemented EHRs, with only 13% having guidelines for quality and safety in telehealth.
• Patient safety-related indicators suggest a need for improvement with a high number of patient-reported medical mistakes.
• People-centredness indicators highlight important gaps in data collection on patient-reported outcome measures and experiences. Less than one third of the countries report on people-centredness indicators. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and experiences (PREMs) have important consequences for public confidence in the health system, health-care utilisation patterns, retention in care, and people’s decision to bypass facilities.
• Aggregated data mask inequalities within countries, showing a need for local systems of data collection and an evidence-base for equity-oriented policies.
• Poor population health outcomes highlight the need for a life-course approach and intersectoral action taking a quality of care perspective on the health of individuals and generations.

Policy actions

Based on the findings of the survey and towards addressing some of the challenges revealed across countries, a number of prospective actions to promote and/or ensure quality of care and patient safety emerge from the analysis.

1. Invest in whole-system quality that comprises integrated quality planning, quality control, and quality improvement activities.
2. Invest in the development of national action plans and policies for quality of care and patient safety.
3. Develop a harmonised set of indicators for measuring and continuously improving quality of care, including measures that matter most to patients.
4. Ensure patient and public representation in national health governance.
5. Establish clear, evidence-based standards for all care settings.
6. Re-design models of care around the needs and preferences of patients.
7. Invest in an health and care workforce with the capacity and capability to meet the demands and needs of the population for high-quality care.
8. Invest in robust public budgeting for quality of care and reconfigure payments to incentivise value in health service delivery.
9. Develop comprehensive and multistakeholder-led biotechnology sector policies to address quality and affordability for patients and health-care systems.
10. Invest in digital health solutions that support quality of care.

The key messages of the publication are the following:

• Actions taken to enhance the protection and safety of patients and personnel involved in medical use of radiation represent radiation safety. These actions lead to radiation safety culture when organisational and individual characteristics and attitudes that determine how everyone practices radiation safety are considered and embedded within an organization (e.g., ideas, values, behaviours and customs).
• Anyone with a safety concern or perceived safety concern should be empowered to raise awareness and resolve the issue before commencing activities.
• Leadership, management and personal accountability are critical factors in enhancing radiation safety culture, and those involved in radiation safety should prioritize them as such.
• Understanding the errors affecting patient safety has developed from a simple causal model to one that considers a complex mix of behaviours and interactions influencing the environment and outcome.
• Implementing the principles of justification and optimization is essential to ensure that radiation used in health care is managed safely.
• Engagement strategies must be tailored to the diverse groups of stakeholders contributing to radiation safety culture.
• Everyone in the diverse groups of stakeholders is responsible for assuring a strong radiation safety culture in health care aiming that patients are imaged and treated correctly.
• Communication, education and training are considered essential for establishing and maintaining radiation safety culture.
• There needs to be consistent and coordinated understanding of radiation safety culture among the many stakeholders within health care, which acknowledges the varying perceptions.
• Everyone can participate in strengthening safety culture. There are international, national and local initiatives to help health care providers improve radiation safety.
• A combination of optimal tools is required to establish and maintain radiation safety culture. This includes standards and regulations, policies and procedures, education and training, audit activities, communication strategies, reporting and learning systems, checklists, verification procedures, time-out procedures as well as technical developments.
• A positive safety culture can be defined by ten traits: leadership responsibility, individual responsibility, continuous learning, effective safety communication, respectful work environment, problem identification and resolution, environment for raising concerns, decision-making, questioning attitude and work processes.
• Good practices to improve safety culture shared by radiation health care providers can be adopted/adapted around the world.
• Existing frameworks proposing assessment tools and performance indicators can be adopted and adapted to the local context to assess level and quality of radiation safety culture.

Related reading

• Raising awareness and protecting staff from ionising radiation: an interview with Katie Hurst

In this report, the WHO initially sets out the burden of harm to patients, noting the following key messages:

• Unsafe care is a significant global public health issue, with more than one in ten patients experiencing harm in medical care settings – half of which could be preventable – leading to millions of deaths and substantial economic costs annually.
• The burden of unsafe care disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries, where the majority of patient harm and associated deaths occur.
• Vulnerable populations, including older adults, children and ethnic minorities, face higher risks of patient harm, highlighting the importance of tailored interventions for safety of these groups within health care systems.
• Globally, 1 in 20 patients suffer from preventable medication harm, highlighting a significant challenge across health care systems. Specifically, over half (53%) of this harm arises at the prescribing stage, pointing to a crucial need for improving medication safety practices.
• Highly specialized care settings, such as intensive care, emergency and surgical units, are associated with the highest rates of patient harm, including both overall harm and preventable harm. In primary care, an estimated 7% of patients experience harm.

It also summarises the financial and economic burden of unsafe care, noting the following key messages:

• Unsafe care significantly burdens health care budgets, consuming up to 12.6% of total health expenditure in high-income countries, translating into approximately $878 billion annually.
• Patient harm’s financial impact varies by setting: in acute care, complications inflate costs; in primary care, adverse drug events and misdiagnoses lead to unnecessary hospital use; and in long-term care, conditions such as pressure ulcers add significant expenses, showing the broad economic effects of unsafe care.
• Patient harm significantly reduces productivity and increases income loss, imposing indirect costs on economies that can surpass direct health care costs. Improving patient safety could have profound economic benefits, potentially increasing global economic output by 15% over two decades.
• The global willingness to invest in preventing patient harm, potentially averting US$1.17 trillion annually in costs, underscores the strong rationale for health care systems to prioritize patient safety.
• Effective patient safety interventions, such as the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist and strategies to prevent healthcare-associated infections (HCAIs), offer high returns on investment, demonstrating that targeted efforts to improve care safety are not only medically beneficial but also economically wise.

The report then takes a global overview of patient safety initiatives and progress made around the world, looking at this against each of the strategic objectives set out in the Global Patient Safety Action Plan:

1. Policies to eliminate avoidable harm in health care
2. High-reliability systems
3. Safety of clinical processes
4. Patient and family engagement
5. Health worker education, skills and safety
6. Information, research and risk management
7. Synergy, partnerships and solidarity

The infographic below provides a high level summary of progress made against core indicators in the Global Patient Safety Action Plan (these percentages refer only to the 108 countries that completed the corresponding survey).

It promotes the upholding of patient safety rights, as established by international human rights standards, for everyone, everywhere, regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity or race, language, religion, disability, socioeconomic status or any other status. The Charter will support stakeholders in formulating policies and legislation, and in developing mechanisms to ensure that patients’ rights to safe care are respected, protected and fulfilled.

The 10 fundamental patient safety rights outlined in the Charter are the right to: 

1. Timely, effective and appropriate care.
2. Safe health care processes and practices.
3. Qualified and competent health workers.
4. Safe medical products and their safe and rational use.
5. Safe and secure health care facilities.
6. Dignity, respect, non-discrimination, privacy and confidentiality.
7. Information, education and supported decision making.
8. Access medical records.
9. To be heard and fair resolution.
10. Patient and family engagement.

Tuesday 17 September 2024 marks the fifth annual World Patient Safety Day. World Patient Safety Day aims to:

• increase public awareness and engagement
• enhance global understanding
• work towards global solidarity and action by World Health Organization (WHO) Member States to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.

The theme of this year’s event is “Improving diagnosis for patient safety”.

Errors can happen at every stage of the diagnostic process and can happen in all healthcare settings. Diagnostic errors can be broadly divided into three categories:

1. Delayed diagnosis – where harm is caused because of a health condition not being identified at an earlier stage. This may  happen because of failure to use the correct tests, outdated forms of assessment or failure to act on results of monitoring or testing.
2. Incorrect diagnosis – where the wrong diagnosis is made and the true cause is then discovered later on. This can lead to patients receiving the wrong treatments, that may even be harmful. They also  may not receive the appropriate treatment for their condition.
3. Missed diagnosis – where a patient’s illness or health condition is not identified, which can result in their condition worsening and avoidable harm because they are not receiving any treatment.

Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2024

Through the slogan “Get it right, make it safe”, WHO is calling for concerted efforts to significantly reduce diagnostic errors through a variety of interventions rooted in systems thinking, human factors and actively engaging patients, their families, health workers and healthcare leaders. These interventions include—but are not limited to—making sure clinicians have a complete patient history, undertaking thorough clinical examinations, improving access to diagnostic tests, implementing methods to measure and learn from diagnostic errors, and adopting technology-based solutions.

As part of this, WHO has set four objectives:

1. Raise global awareness of errors in diagnosis contributing to patient harm and emphasise the pivotal role of correct, timely and safe diagnosis in improving patient safety.
2. Give prominence to diagnostic safety in patient safety policy and clinical practice at all levels of health care, aligned with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030.
3. Foster collaboration among policy-makers, health care leaders, health workers, patient organisations, and other stakeholders in advancing correct, timely and safe diagnosis.
4. Empower patients and families to actively engage with health workers and health care leaders to improve diagnostic processes.

Share your views and experiences on the hub

Do you have an experience around diagnostic safety that you would like to share? Or perhaps you are a healthcare professional looking to share your insights to help improve patient safety?

You can share your thoughts with us by commenting below (sign up here for free first), submitting a blog, or by emailing us at content@pslhub.org.

You can also find a number of existing resources, tools and stories relating to diagnosis and patient safety on the hub here.

#WPSD24