World Patient Safety Day 2023

Summary

This year's World Patient Safety Day on the 17 September will focus on engaging patients for patient safety, in recognition of the crucial role patients, families and caregivers play in the safety of healthcare. This article provides a brief summary about the event.

Content

Sunday 17 September 2023 marks the fifth annual World Patient Safety Day. Its objectives are to increase public awareness and engagement, enhance global understanding, and work towards global solidarity and action by Member States to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.

The theme for this year’s event is “Engaging patients for patient safety”.[1]

At Patient Safety Learning we believe that patient engagement is key to improving patient safety and identify this as one of the six foundations of safer care in our report, A Blueprint for Action.[2] We believe that patients should be engaged for safety at the point of care, if things go wrong, in improving services, advocating for changes and in holding the system to account.

Evidence shows that when patients are treated as partners in their care, significant gains are made in safety, patient satisfaction and health outcomes. By becoming active members of the healthcare team, patients can contribute to the safety of their care and that of the healthcare system as a whole.

“Hear the patient. Empower the voice of the people we are trying to help. They have more information than just about anyone else in the system.” (Professor Don Berwick)

Engaging patients and the Global Patient Safety Action Plan

Patient and family engagement are embedded in the World Health Assembly Resolution WHA72.6 – “Global action on patient safety”. This is also identified as one of the seven strategic objectives of the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030, which sets out a number of actions for the World Health Organization (WHO), governments, healthcare facilities and key health and social care stakeholders on this. Describing the importance of patient engagement for improving patient safety, the Plan states:

“Patient engagement and empowerment is perhaps the most powerful tool to improve patient safety. Patients, families and other informal caregivers bring insights from their experiences of care that cannot be substituted or replicated by clinicians, managers or researchers. This is especially so for those who have suffered harm. Patients, families and caregivers can serve as vigilant observers of a patient’s condition and can alert health care professionals when new needs arise. Given proper information, the patient and family can help to be the eyes and ears of the system.”[3]

Objectives of World Patient Safety Day 2023

Through the slogan “Elevate the voice of patients!”, WHO is calling on all stakeholders to take necessary action to ensure that patients are involved in policy formulation, are represented in governance structures, are engaged in co-designing safety strategies, and are active partners in their own care.

 As part of this, they have set four objectives for this year’s event:

1. Raise global awareness of the need for active engagement of patients and their families and caregivers in all settings and at all levels of healthcare to improve patient safety.
2. Engage policy-makers, healthcare leaders, health and care workers, patients’ organisations, civil society and other stakeholders in efforts to engage patients and families in the policies and practices for safe healthcare.
3. Empower patients and families to be actively involved in their own healthcare and in the improvement of safety of healthcare.
4. Advocate urgent action on patient and family engagement, aligned with the Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021–2030, to be taken by all partners.

References

1. WHO, World Patient Safety Day 2023: Engaging Patients for Patient Safety, 17 September 2023.
2. Patient Safety Learning, The Patient-Safe Future: A Blueprint for Action, 2019.
3. WHO, Global Patient Safety Action Plan 2021-2030, 3 August 2021.

Related reading

You can find a wide range of personal stories, good practice resources and research on this topic on our patient engagement section of the hub. You also may find the below articles of particular interest:

• How can patients' voices be heard and acted upon when they attempt to report incidents of harm?
• Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Soojin Jun, Co-founder of Patients for Patient Safety US
• Tokenism in patient engagement is unethical—but it is also dangerous. A blog by Kath Sansom
• Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Jono Broad, Quality Improvement through Patient Involvement