Evaluating the impact of Patient Safety Partners: sharing our approach and resources

Summary

Patient Safety Partners (PSPs) can be patients, relatives, carers or other members of the public who want to support and contribute to a healthcare organisation’s governance and management processes for patient safety.

In this blog, Lea Tiernan, Patient safety engagement & involvement lead at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, shares their approach to evaluating the impact of PSPs alongside a suite of related resources for others to adapt and use.

Content

Patient Safety Partners (PSPs) are a key part of how we involve patients and communities in patient safety at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. Since introducing the programme in 2022, PSPs have worked alongside staff to shape safety improvement projects, co-design patient-facing resources, contribute to training, and help ensure the patient perspective remains visible in safety discussions.

Three years into the programme, we wanted to better understand the impact PSPs were having on safety improvement and safety culture and identify opportunities to strengthen the programme further. To do this, we carried out a mixed-methods evaluation drawing on surveys, interviews, discussions, activity data and benchmarking with other organisations.

We found that PSP impact is rarely linear or directly attributable. Both staff and PSPs described their influence as being strongest through shaping thinking, co-designing solutions, improving patient-facing communications, and helping teams consider patient experience in a different way. The evaluation reinforced that much of the value of PSP involvement lies in its contribution to culture, reflection and decision-making, rather than in easily measurable outcomes.

As part of the evaluation, we developed several practical resources to help structure our approach and capture meaningful learning. We know that many organisations are looking to evaluate their PSP programmes but are unsure where to start, so we are making these resources available for others to adapt and use.

Resources available

Patient Safety Partner evaluation plan: Sets out the overall evaluation approach, including objectives, measures, data sources and reporting arrangements. Used to establish a clear framework before data collection began.

1. Patient safety partner evaluation plan.pdf

PSP programme evaluation questions for project leads: A structured set of interview and discussion questions used with project leads and staff working alongside PSPs to understand perceived impact, strengths and opportunities for improvement.

2. PSP programme evaluation – Project lead questions.docx

PSP programme evaluation questions for senior responsible officers: Questions designed for senior leaders overseeing programmes involving PSPs, helping capture strategic perspectives on value, influence and organisational impact.

3. PSP programme evaluation - Questions for SRO.docx

PSP benchmarking plan: A simple approach to benchmarking PSP programmes with peer organisations, used to understand how our programme compared with others and identify learning opportunities. This was designed by one of our PSPs, Armine Afrikian.

4. PSP evaluation - Benchmarking plan.docx

Patient Safety Partner evaluation report: The final report bringing together findings from surveys, interviews, benchmarking and wider stakeholder feedback, alongside recommendations for future development of the programme.

5. Patient safety partner evaluation report v0.6 - Patient safety learning hub.docx

PSP post-evaluation workshop: developing ideas: A facilitated workshop resource used with PSPs to explore findings, review the recommendations and come up with practical steps to achieve them.

6. PSP workshop - Developing ideas.docx

We hope these resources are useful for organisations looking to better understand the impact of their PSP programmes. They are not intended to be a prescriptive model, but a starting point that can be adapted to local contexts, priorities and maturity of involvement. By sharing them, we hope to support wider learning and encourage more organisations to evaluate not just whether PSPs are involved, but how that involvement is making a difference.

Share your insights

Do you work with Patient Safety Partners? Or perhaps you are one? What impact have you seen the role have and could the resources shared by Lea help you to capture that? Comment below (sign up first for free) to share your thoughts.