World Patient Safety Day 2025 at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Summary

The Patient Safety Group (PSG) of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) have drawn together a comprehensive, multi-layered campaign to highlight World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) and champion the theme of Safe Care for Every Newborn and Every Child. A wide range of resources have been developed.

Content

Webinar

To help celebrate this year’s WPSD, the RCSEd are hosting a webinar at 7pm GMT on World Patient Safety Day itself (17 September) covering the importance of system design in helping to ensure safety for neonates and children.

Podcast

Claire Morgan, Consultant in Restorative Dentistry, Dental Council Member and Deputy Chair of the College’s Patient Safety Group, alongside Gregory Ekatah, Consultant Colorectal Surgeon and Convenor RCSEd Let’s Talk Surgery Podcast Series, will be in conversation with Professor Sanjiv Sharma, Paediatric Intensive Care Consultant, past Great Ormand Street Hospital for Children Medical Director and current Chief Medical Officer at Barts Health NHS Trust. We will hear about Professor Sharma’s journey to paediatric surgery leader including his motivations, ambitions and challenges, together with his reflections on WPSD 2025 and what the day means to him as a clinical leader in the paediatric space. 

Infographics

The College have released a series of infographics summarising key aspects of newborn and child safety. These cover: 1) the scale of the problem in paediatric patient safety, 2) the main causes of poor newborn and child health, 3) the potential solutions to addressing paediatric patient safety concerns, and 4) safe dental care for every newborn and every child. 

Recorded inspirational talk

Professor Warwick Teague, Consultant Paediatric Surgeon, Director of Trauma Service & Clinical Lead Burns Service, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia, and RCSEd ad Hominem Fellow, has recorded an inspirational talk for us on how to reduce injuries in children. Warwick is a passionate and highly engaging speaker and this talk is sure to be enjoyed by many. 

Educational vignettes

A series of Educational Vignettes have also been produced to highlight some of the RCSEd’s training workshops which aim to improve the surgical care provided to newborns and children. Amanda McCabe, Consultant Paediatric Surgeon and RCSEd Council Member, outlines the College’s Basic Skills in Paediatric Surgery Workshop, a biannual one-day course to help optimise fine motor skills in the novice surgeon for neonatal cases.

Steven Powell, Consultant Head and Neck Surgeon and Chair of the College’s Surgical Specialty Board (SSB) in Otolaryngology, shares details about the College’s Surgery and The Child Workshop. This course, with a faculty of paediatricians, psychologists, anaesthetists and surgeons, is designed to bridge the peri-operative knowledge and non-technical skills gap in adult surgeons who are also called upon at times to treat children as part of their practice.

Blogs

The College will be running a series of blogs on key surgical topics in newborn and child patient safety. These have been provided by patients, families and carers, alongside members of the College’s Patient Safety Group, College Council and the wider College fellowship. The College’s eleven Surgical Specialty Boards (SSBs) have been asked to provide blogs on key issues in the care of children in their individual specialty that they would like to highlight.

The blogs provide examples of how patients, clinical teams and health care organisations can work together to improve the safety of newborns and children when undergoing medical and surgical care.

Surgery

• Keeping our Children Safe. National strategies to improve safety in healthcare for children
• Building Hope Through Training: how one surgeon will begin to transform paediatric care in South Sudan
• Urology: Testicular Torsion
• The best care for any newborn or child involves delivering the best care for their mother
• Designing the build for safety – how can we achieve this?
• Patient Safety in Children’s and Neonatal Surgery: A Global Perspective
• Patient safety from the start – how SAS/LED surgeons can lead from the front
• What Have We Got Left to Learn About Safety in Paediatric Surgery?
• Paediatric Head Injury: a global health challenge with stark inequalities
• Neonatal Hydrocephalus: the Importance of early diagnosis and management in a global context
• Top Patient Safety tips for resident doctors in paediatric surgical practice
•  Parent and Carer Insight in Paediatric Surgery: an essential data point
• Effective Handover: an important patient safety tool in paediatric surgical specialities
• Lasers aren’t toys: preventing injuries and protecting children’s eyes
• Neonatal airway safety
• Safety for neonatal hearing
• Auditing Services for Developmental Dysplasia Hip Reduces Need for Surgical Intervention in Children
• Safety considerations for managing intra-abdominal conditions in the pregnant surgical patient
• Bridging the gap: ensuring safe transfer of urological care for young patients
• The Importance of Early Identification of a Cleft Palate

You can download all the resources from the RCSEd website link below or from the QR code below:

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