The hub's top patient safety picks of 2025

Summary

At Patient Safety Learning we believe that sharing insights and learning is vital to improving outcomes and reducing harm. That's why we created the hub; to provide a space for people to come together and share their experiences, resources and good practice examples. Since launching in 2019, the hub now has over 19,000 resources, 8000 members from 98 countries, and we have had over 1.7million visits and over 3 million page views.

In this blog, the hub's Editor, Samantha Warne, reflects on our most popular pieces of original content published on the hub in 2025. These are a mix of our original blogs, interviews and resources shared by patients, frontline staff and leaders in patient safety. It shows the breadth of content we have on the hub, including collaborations we have with other organisations and people, patient stories, the challenges healthcare staff face and insights from an international perspective. Keep an eye out for more end of year content from our team at Patient Safety Learning, including a policy roundup.

Content

1 Speaking up for patient safety: A new interview series about raising concerns and whistleblowing

At the beginning of 2025, we launched our video interview series Speaking up for patient safety. The series is hosted by Peter Duffy, NHS whistleblower and Chair of the Healthcare Working Group at WhistleblowersUK, and Helen Hughes, Patient Safety Learning’s Chief Executive. In each interview we hear from someone who has raised concerns about patient safety in healthcare, often at great cost to their own career and personal life, or from those who work to help staff raise concerns through their own experience and advice. Alongside the thread of bravery and tenacity that runs through each contributor, a number of common themes come up time and again as people share their experiences. One thing that we often hear is the common tactics that some organisations use when dealing with people who speak up or blow the whistle. To highlight these tactics we created 'The whistleblower playbook' infographic, illustrating how some organisations respond to staff raising concerns about patient safety.

2 Patient Safety Learning: World Patient Safety Day 2025

The theme of this year’s World Patient Safety Day was ‘Safe care for every newborn and every child’. In a blog to mark the day, Patient Safety Learning reflected on this theme, highlighting the World Health Organization goals for this event and shared a series of guest blogs from healthcare professionals, patient campaigners, organisation leaders and safety experts on the hub, each exploring a different aspect of the theme.

3 Duty of Candour: Frequently Asked Questions

Through the joint efforts of the Patient Safety Management Network in collaboration with experts from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and NHS Resolution, these FAQs were produced to address the most pressing concerns about Duty of Candour. The collaborative approach ensured that the FAQ tool reflects the insights and expertise of those actively engaged in the regulation, implementation and oversight of candour practices. This is an example of the ‘how to’ resources that Patient Safety Learning, the networks and partners are developing to guide the implementation of good practice in patient safety.

4 Working in a toxic culture: Doing the right thing is often the least popular and hardest thing to do…

In this blog, Clare Wade, Patient Safety Learning's Director, draws attention to the impact toxic cultures have on staff and how, sadly, most often nothing is done about it. Clare shares her own personal reflections from past experiences in her career. There is a clear link between toxic cultures and patient safety, and while there are no easy answers these behaviours must be acknowledged, challenged and cured if the NHS is to survive.

5 Top 10 priorities for patient safety in surgery

Patient Safety Learning asked the Patient Safety Group (PSG) of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) to draw up their top tips for patient safety in surgery to share on the hub. They came up with three useful resources for surgeons and surgical trainees:

• Top 10 priorities for patient safety in surgery
• Top 10 tips for surgical safety: Think Safety, think SEIPS
• Top 10 patient safety tips for surgical trainees

These resources are an example of the effectiveness of collaborating with partners such as the RCSEd to develop resources that will help practitioners better understand patient safety and how they can access resources to help reduce avoidable harm.

6 What do Patient Safety Incident Response Plans tell us about how the NHS is approaching safety investigations?

From Autumn 2023, NHS organisations in England began to change the way they investigated cases of avoidable patient harm and near misses, introducing the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF). As part of PSIRF, organisations are required to create and publish a Patient Safety Incident Response Plan. Drawing from a sample of 13 Patient Safety Incident Response Plans, Patient Safety Learning considers what they can tell us about the implementation of PSIRF. This is intended to support organisations who are currently reviewing their PSIRPs to ensure that their prioritisation of investigations and reviews meets national guidance and provides an evidence based rationale to inform patients, families and staff.

7 Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction: After 30 years, why is the health system still failing to recognise this life-limiting adverse effect?

Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD) is a long-term adverse effect of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), a type of antidepressant medication. In this opinion piece, Harriet Vogt, Patient Safety Partner at NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board, outlines the need for recognition and research into PSSD to allow patients to make truly informed choices when considering SSRIs. She argues that while the health system is beginning to recognise the value of placing patients at the heart of efforts to improve safety, this focus on listening is rarely given to individual patients who express concern about the impact of their medication or treatment.

8 SEIPS in action

In this blog, Patient Safety Learning’s Associate Director Claire Cox shares a video with associated training resources developed for the Patient Safety Management Network Symposium. Claire explains how they used it to facilitate an interactive workshop, bringing SEIPS (Systems Engineering Initiative for Patient Safety) to life. It's now available as a resource for you to use in your own organisation. It is simple to set up, highly engaging, and encourages teams to think beyond individuals and see the wider system in action.

9 Balancing care: The psychological impact of ensuring patient safety

In this blog, Leah Bowden, a patient safety specialist working in an ambulance service, reflects on the impact her job has on her mental health and family life. She discusses why there needs to be specialised clinical supervision for staff involved in reviewing patient safety incidents and how organisations need to come together to identify ways we can support our patient safety teams.

10 Exploring the barriers that impact access to NHS care for people with ME and Long Covid

For healthcare to be safe it needs to be accessible. But what does this look like for people with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and Long Covid? This blog from #ThereForME explores the barriers that impact access to NHS care for people with ME and Long Covid.

11 Bridging the gap between policy and practice: A Safety-II approach to patient transfers

In this anonymous blog, a patient safety lead shares how they implemented a Safety-II approach to patient transfers, highlighting the disconnect between 'work as imagined' and 'work as done', and the importance of listening to frontline voices. The author worked with subject matter experts to develop a visual, easy-to-use risk stratification tool designed to support decision making on the appropriate level of clinical escort required for safe transfer. While the tool is applicable to most adult acute settings, certain areas—such as maternity, paediatrics, and specialist theatres—require their own local adaptations. This could have wider applicability to a range of different clinical settings.

12 Evidencing the impact of culture on patient safety – a new tool from MNSI

In this interview, Chris McQuitty, a clinical fellow at the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigation (MNSI) programme, talks us through a new patient safety tool. COMPASS (Culture of Organisations and its iMpact on PAtientS’ Safety) is currently being piloted to help understand the impact organisational culture may have on patient safety in maternity settings.

13 Improving safety in healthcare—is quality improvement the answer?

The healthcare landscape is evolving rapidly, with increasing complexity in patient needs, technological advancements and regulatory requirements. As this complexity grows, ensuring patient safety remains a top priority. One of the most widely adopted strategies for enhancing safety is quality improvement (QI), but is QI the right tool for navigating and improving safety in an increasingly complex health system asks Patient Safety Learning’s Associate Director Claire Cox.  Claire reflects on the need for a safety management systems approach, as highlighted in Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSSIB) reports, essential to embedding a proactive, system-wide perspective on patient safety. Additionally, aligning QI efforts with patient safety standards and Patient Safety Learning standards ensures a structured, evidence-based approach to mitigating risks and driving sustainable improvements.

14 Preventing patient falls in healthcare settings: The need for fall risk assessment

Patient falls are a significant concern in healthcare settings, often leading to severe injuries, prolonged hospital stays and increased healthcare costs. This blog from Augustine Kumah, Deputy Quality Manager at The Bank Hospital, Accra, Ghana, explores the significance of fall risk assessment, its implementation and its role in reducing fall-related incidents in healthcare settings.

15 Patient barcode scanning in NHS hospitals: safety, snags and workarounds. A nurse’s perspective

As a nurse working in the NHS for over 25 years, Claire Cox has seen first-hand how technology has transformed patient care. One of the biggest changes in recent years has been the introduction of electronic scanning. In this blog, Claire talks about the opportunities to improve patient safety and the risks associated with the use of barcode technology in healthcare.

16 Corridor care and patient safety

Corridor care can broadly be defined as care being provided to patients in corridors, non-clinical areas or unsuitable clinical areas because of a lack of hospital bed capacity. It is increasingly being used in the NHS as demand for emergency care grows and hospital departments struggle with patient numbers. In a series of blogs for the hub, we shine a light on some of the key patient safety issues surrounding corridor care.

Share your experiences on the hub

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to the hub this year.

the hub is a platform for everyone with a professional or personal interest in patient safety to share and learn from one another. Have you implemented a new initiative in your organisation? Have you improved patient safety where you work? Or are you a patient and would like to share your experience to improve patient safety? 

We would love to hear from you and share on the hub your stories. This can be done anonymously if you prefer.

If you are a member, you can share directly on the hub or please contact [email protected] to discuss further.

See all our 'Top picks'

Our ‘Top picks’ are collections of resources, blogs and tools around a specific topic or theme. You can view them all here: Top picks.