Patient Safety Now: safety II and maternity (September 2022)

Summary

Safety II moves away from simply looking at what went wrong, and aims to understand the realities of everyday work in a constructive and positive way. It focuses on the system as a whole, rather than the end result of the work done. In this blog, Professor Suzette Woodward, Professional and Clinical Advisor in Patient Safety, looks at the role of the Safety II approach in making maternity services safer. She outlines the importance of asking and listening to staff about how to reduce complexity and reform areas of the system that are prone to error.