National patient safety syllabus: consultation submission

Summary

Patient Safety Learning has submitted the attached response to the consultation for the national patient safety syllabus.

The NHS Patient Safety Strategy, published in June 2019, sets out three strategic aims around Insight, Involvement and Improvement which will enable it to achieve its safety vision. It defines the Involvement aim as ‘equipping patients, staff and partners with the skills and opportunities to improve patient safety throughout the whole system’.

A key action associated with this aim is the creation of a system-wide patient safety syllabus which is capable of ‘producing the best informed and safety-focused workforce in the world’. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AOMRC) has been commissioned by Health Education England (HEE) to develop a new National patient safety syllabus. The Academy has now published its first version of this for review and feedback.

At Patient Safety Learning, we’ve been working with the AOMRC and HEE in the initial stage of development to share our thoughts on the initial proposals in this syllabus. Now that this has been formally published for consultation, we want to share our submission as part of the consultation process which closed on Friday 28 February 2020.

We welcome the development of a National patient safety syllabus and believe that it’s very important that this acts as a key driver for achieving a step change in patient safety across the NHS. 

In our response to the consultation we identify several areas where there are significant gaps in the initial draft that need to be addressed and comment on the development process of the syllabus, inviting a more inclusive and transparent process that enables a wide range of stakeholders to engage and contribute.

Attachments