WHO Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030 (Final version)

Summary

The Global Patient Safety Action Plan aims to provide a strategic direction for concrete actions to be taken by countries, partner organisations, care facilities and World Health Organization (WHO). It sets out a vision of a “world in which no patient is harmed in healthcare, and everyone receives safe and respectful care, every time, everywhere” and a goal of achieving the maximum possible reduction in avoidable harm as a result of unsafe care.

Content

The World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2019 adopted a resolution, ‘Global action on patient safety’, to give priority to patient safety as an essential foundational step in building, designing, operating and evaluating the performance of all healthcare systems. The resolution asked the Director General of WHO to formulate a Global Patient Safety Action Plan in consultation with Member States and a wide range of partners and other organisations. 

This Action Plan was formally adopted at WHA on the 28 May 2021 and provides a 10-year roadmap and actions to work towards its vision of a world in which no one is harmed in healthcare and every patient receives safe and respectful care, every time, everywhere.

Vision, mission and goal

Vision - A world in which no one is harmed in healthcare and every patient receives safe and respectful care, every time, everywhere.

Mission - Drive forward policies, strategies and actions based on science, patient experience, system design and partnerships to eliminate all sources of avoidable risk and harm to patients and health workers.

Goal - Achieve the maximum possible reduction in avoidable harm due to unsafe healthcare globally.

Guiding Principles

The following seven guiding principles establish an underpinning set of values to guide the development and implementation of the framework for action proposed in the Action Plan:

1. Engage patients and families as partners in safe care
2. Achieve results through collaborative working
3. Analyse and share data to generate learning
4. Translate evidence into actionable and measurable improvement
5. Base policies and action on the nature of the care setting
6. Use both scientific expertise and patient experience to improve safety
7. Instil a safety culture in the design and delivery of healthcare.

Strategic Objectives

The actions in this plan which aim to achieve its stated vision, mission and goal are grouped into seven overarching strategic objectives:

1. Policies to eliminate avoidable harm in healthcare
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, partnership and solidarity.

Further reading

• Developing the next Global Patient Safety Action Plan - Part 1 (A blog by Helen Hughes)
• Developing the next Global Patient Safety Action Plan - Part 2 (A blog by Helen Hughes)
• How do we take global action for patient safety? (Patient Safety Learning)
• Reflections on the latest draft Global Patient Safety Action Plan (Patient Safety Learning)
• The Overlooked Pandemic: How to transform patient safety and save healthcare systems (G20 Health and Development Partnership and RLDatix)
• The Economics of Patient Safety: From analysis to action (OECD and the Saudi Patient Safety Centre)