Health Education England: In Safe Hands. Prioritising patient safety across the NHS (2019)

Summary

‘In Safe Hands’ is an interactive guide produced by Health Education England (HEE) who is responsible for delivering education and training that supports safer clinical practice across the NHS. This guide has been produced in response to the recommendations made in the 2016 report ‘Improving Safety Through Education & Training’.

Content

Over the past three years, HEE has worked with its clinical leads, providers and more to address the report’s 12 recommendations:

1. Ensure learning from patient safety data and good practice.
2. Develop and use a common language to describe all elements of quality improvement science and human factors with respect to patient safety.
3. Ensure robust evaluation of education and training for patient safety .
4. Engage patients, family members, carers and the public in the design and delivery of education and training for patient safety.
5. Supporting the duty of candour is vital and there must be high quality educational training packages available.
6. The learning environment must support all learners and staff to raise and respond to concerns about patient safety.
7. The content of mandatory training for patient safety needs to be coherent across the NHS.
8. All NHS leaders need patient safety training so they can have the knowledge and tools to drive change and improvement.
9. Education and training must support the delivery of more integrated ‘joined-up’ care.
10. Ensure increased opportunities for inter-professional learning .
11. Principles of human factors and professionalism must be embedded across education and training
12. Ensure staff have the skills to identify and manage potential risks.

This has led to the implementation of many education, training and development schemes that promote safe clinical practice across all health and care services. This guide highlights many of the key areas where progress has been made, while offering a roadmap to what still needs to be achieved. Most importantly, it illustrates how all NHS stakeholders – including you – can get involved to help adopt and promote a safety-first culture whichever care sector you work within.