NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaborations

Summary

NIHR Patient Safety Research Collaborations (PSRCs) are partnerships between universities and NHS trusts that support patient safety research. There are six PSRCs in England, aiming to bring patient safety discoveries to frontline NHS services.

Content

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has funded six Patient Safety Research Collaborations (PSRCs) in England with a £25 million investment over five years, from 1 April 2023. 

PSRCs will carry out research to improve patient safety, looking at topics including service delivery, patient safety behaviours, clinical decision making, and transitions between care settings. A key emphasis underpinning all research will be reducing safety inequalities in healthcare.

The six collaborations will establish a PSRC Network, providing a platform for strategic coordination and collaboration. This will facilitate national links between PSRCs and their key partners, including Academic Health Science Networks, Patient Safety Improvement Programmes, NHS England, NIHR infrastructure, charities, industry and other national partners.

Addressing Strategic Patient Safety Challenges

NIHR PSRCs will undertake a programme of work to address one or more Strategic Patient Safety Challenges, which have been developed with relevant stakeholders. These are:

• Improving patient safety intelligence and understanding of patient safety challenges
• Improving organisational patient safety culture and practice
• Patient safety behaviours
• Effective patient safety practices
• The patient safety impacts of alternative service delivery models
• Ergonomics, design and human factors
• Clinical risk scores (validation, implementation and outcomes).