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I have spent almost three years as an NHS stop smoking advisor in Luton. A client called me five days after removing her nicotine patch due to a skin reaction. She had started smoking again. She was distressed and convinced she had failed. The answer to her question took me thirty seconds. She could have had it five days earlier if there had been anywhere to turn at the moment she needed it. That moment made me ask whether technology could do what the NHS structurally cannot. Provide trusted, clinically grounded support at any hour, in any language, in the moments when relapse is most likely to happen. So, I developed an AI-powered stop smoking support tool. This blog is about what building this innovative product taught me about patient safety. The gap that innovation has to fill Relapse in smoking cessation does not usually happen because someone stops wanting to quit. It happens in unguarded moments between appointments. At 11pm on a Saturday. After a stressful day at work. When something goes wrong with nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and there is nobody to call. That structural gap is not a failure of the NHS. It is a limitation of what any appointment-based service can provide. Innovation exists to fill gaps that existing systems cannot reach. This was mine to fill. The innovation I built alongside my NHS role While continuing in my NHS role, I built an AI-powered stop smoking support platform delivered through WhatsApp. The choice of WhatsApp was deliberate. No app download is required. It works on any smartphone and is available in six languages. In Luton, where significant communities speak Urdu, Bengali, Arabic, Polish and Romanian as their first language, removing every possible barrier to access was a patient safety decision as much as a design one. The platform provides real-time nicotine craving support, NRT guidance, behavioural nudges, relapse prevention messaging and proactive check-ins. Every response is grounded in verified NHS clinical guidance using a technique called retrieval augmented generation, meaning the AI draws from a curated clinical knowledge base rather than generating health information from general training data. The innovation is not the technology itself. The technology exists. The innovation is applying it to a specific, underserved clinical gap with genuine patient safety discipline built in from the beginning. Why patient safety had to come before innovation Before I wrote a single line of code, I had to answer an uncomfortable question. What could go wrong if this AI got something wrong? In a stop smoking context the risks are real and specific. A pregnant client might ask about NRT safety. Someone in mental health crisis might reach out through the tool. A user might receive confident sounding information that is clinically incorrect. These were not hypothetical concerns. They were situations I had encountered as a human advisor. I completed a full clinical hazard log covering fifteen clinical and technical risks before the platform went live. I built human escalation logic as the first feature not the last. When the AI detects language suggesting crisis, risk or a clinical situation beyond its scope, it immediately directs the user to their advisor, a crisis line or emergency services. The innovation only works if the safety net is stronger than the gap it is trying to fill. The innovation lesson I learned from getting it wrong My first multilingual responses were translations of English text rather than naturally generated responses in each language. They were grammatically correct but culturally flat and in some cases confusing. For communities in Luton where English is not the first language this was a patient safety issue not just a usability one. A client who misunderstands health information because the language feels unnatural may make the wrong decision at a critical moment. I rebuilt the language handling so the AI generates responses directly in each language as a native speaker would write them rather than translating from English. Sometimes the most important innovations are not the ones you planned. They are the ones you discover by getting something wrong. What this innovation does not yet know I am currently preparing the AI-powered stop smoking support tool for a pilot with NHS stop smoking services in Luton in partnership with University of Bedfordshire and Luton Borough Council Public Health. The evaluation will compare quit rates against NICE benchmarks and traditional support methods. But I want to be honest about what this innovation does not yet know. Whether AI can fully replicate the human connection that makes stop smoking support effective. How clients with complex needs will interact with the tool in real-world conditions. What risks will emerge in practice that did not appear in design. Innovation in health is not finished when the technology works. It is finished when the evidence says it is safe, effective and reaching the people it was built for. We are not there yet. The pilot is where that work begins. Opinions expressed in blogs and other content are those of the author. Patient Safety Learning welcomes sharing content and opinions that promotes safer patient care and for the reduction of avoidable harm. The views expressed on the hub however do not necessarily represent Patient Safety Learning's views or values. References to a specific product or service does not imply a recommendation or endorsement.

This webinar will explore how organisations across adult social care are using co-production to shape digital services, data use and innovation alongside the people most affected by them. The discussion will focus on a critical question: Who gets to influence how digital data is collected, used and acted on in adult social care? Too often, digital transformation happens to people rather than with them. This session will examine what happens when people with lived experience are genuinely involved in decision-making, service design and digital innovation from the beginning, not simply asked for feedback once decisions have already been made. The webinar will highlight examples where co-production has worked well because: people had real influence and shared ownership services listened and adapted digital approaches reflected people’s actual lives and needs organisations built trust through transparency and collaboration The session will also explore where organisations have struggled, including: consultation being mistaken for co-production digital systems being designed without end-user input communities feeling unheard or excluded power remaining with organisations rather than people The conversation will centre the voices of: people drawing on care and support unpaid carers and families frontline staff communities affected by digital change every day. Register

In February, Public Policy Projects (PPP) hosted their annual Patient Safety Forum in partnership with Patient Safety Learning. Held at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in London, it was attended by senior healthcare leaders, patient safety experts, representatives from the HealthTech industry, frontline healthcare professionals and patients. In this article, Patient Safety Learning reflects on one of the panels discussions—Aligning patient safety with productivity. Against a backdrop of long waiting lists and increasing financial pressures, improving productivity is a priority for healthcare leaders, commissioners and providers. The 10 Year Health Plan for England identifies this as a key issue of the NHS, setting a target to deliver a 2% year on year gain in productivity over the next three years. Productivity gains can sometimes be seen as running contrary to patient safety—a push to deliver more activity while cutting resources. However, at Patient Safety Learning we believe that creating a safer health system can be a key driver of productivity. Unsafe care and its consequences are inherently inefficient: it leads to longer stays, readmissions, litigation, staff turnover and reputational damage. At the Patient Safety Forum 2026 an expert panel was convened to discuss this topic, with the following members: Andi Orlowski, Director, NHS Health Economics Unit Professor Sanjiv Sharma, Group Medical Officer, Barts Health NHS Trust Stephen Rocks, Head of Secretariat for NHS Productivity Commission, The Health Foundation Gayathri Kumar, Lead Health Economist, NHS Health Economics Unit Panellists had a thought-provoking discussion about this topic. In this blog we reflect on the key takeaways from this panel. Scale of the challenge Andi Orlowski noted that while there had been many positive discussions at the Forum about improving patient safety, outcomes and experiences, the financial backdrop faced by the health service remains stark. He pointed to wider pressures on the Government to increase expenditure in areas outside of healthcare, such as defence, and the likely need for the NHS to do more work with the same money or less going forward. Panellists reflected on the scale of the productivity challenge faced by the health system. It was noted that since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the NHS has grown in terms of staffing but productivity has fallen considerably in official measures. This is obviously not in itself a direct relationship, with the latter being associated with a range of issues varying from higher waiting list burdens to increased patient complexity. Stephen Rocks spoke about the work of The Health Foundation’s NHS Productivity Commission. This was established to provide evidence and solutions to boost productivity over the next decade. He was clear that patient safety should be seen as being aligned to productivity, with reductions in avoidable harm ultimately improving patient outcomes and by definition improving productivity. As part of its work, the NHS Productivity Commission held a public call for evidence this year. This invited a wide range of stakeholders to share their insights, ideas and expertise on the productivity challenge and how it could be tackled. Since the Patient Safety Forum took place a summary of its activities to date has now been published. Keeping sight of value A recurring discussion theme was that in looking to improve productivity in healthcare, we should not lose sight of value. By value, we mean whether patients achieve outcomes that matter to them, relative to the resources that have been used. What is meant by value in this context, however, can differ depending on perspective. Reflecting on this point, an audience member noted the importance of ensuring productivity discussions included the views of patients and frontline staff members. Gayathri Kumar concurred with this view, emphasising the importance of having deliberative conversations that include everybody who has a stake in decision making. Speaking about a practical example of this, she referred to the Health Economics Unit using the STAR (Socio-Technical Allocation of Resources) method to support Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). Taught through the Smarter Spending in Population Health programme, this is intended to help decision-makers to effectively assess their resources to see how they can create more value. This involves: Bringing together key stakeholders at decision conferences. Asking them to identify the criteria that matters to them and map the different interventions in a pathway. Subsequently working out what the value for money is, on both the financial side of things and in value terms. By coming together in this way, the aim is that decisions are not simply making assessments based on statistics divorced from patient and healthcare professional experience. It provides a way of identifying higher value interventions and services, crucial when there are only finite budgets available. Not just a financial focus Not simply focusing on financial improvements when thinking about productivity was also a key topic of discussion amongst the panel. Sanjiv Sharma from Barts Health Trust spoke about the importance of recognising the interrelationship of finance, quality and safety in healthcare, rather than framing them in oppositional terms. Avoidable harm in healthcare is not just a tragedy for those involved but comes at a huge financial cost. Sanjiv noted the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimate that the direct cost of treating patients who have been harmed during their care in high-income countries approaches 13% of health spending. Reflecting on their work at Barts Health Trust, Sanjiv said that when they spoke about productivity they used a simple definition: using their resources to treat the highest number of patients in the safety way through the delivery of high-quality care. This moves slightly beyond a pure definition of productivity, also bringing in issues of quality, safety and access. Considering an example of an improvement made without a pure financial focus, he cited the introduction of digital push notifications at Barts Health Trust to improve attendance at outpatient appointments. He said that by using these over a 12-month period they had managed to reduce non-attendance from 12.3% to 10.3%. While this may sound like quite a small percentage, the gain from this was not simply an improvement in attendance. Fewer wasted appointments had enabled them to create a significant number of new appointments, effectively delivering more care while expending a similar resources. This activity links to national proposals around improvements to the NHS App, with plans to use push notifications more widely to remind patients about upcoming appointments and relay important messages. Sanjiv also shared an example from a clinical productivity programme at Barts Health Trust looking at how outpatient clinics operate in the context of breaking down long waiting lists. In particular, looking at how the clinics can be organised more efficiently to better use the time of the most highly remunerated part of the workforce (consultants) so that more patients can be seen in normal working time. He noted this not only can save money on additional working hours, but also reduces the risk of consultants becoming overworked or burned out. More broadly, Sanjiv noted that when considering how healthcare can increase productivity, it is also important to recognise that there are limits to this. He spoke about the need for more honest conversations in wider society about what we can expect from healthcare, with our ageing population in the UK driving ever increasing demand on the system. 10 Year Health Plan As noted earlier, the 10 Year Health Plan for England sets specific goals for productivity improvements in the NHS. But how will this be measured and assessed? Gayathri noted that the answer to this was complex, as it depends on the perspective you take. She noted that if you were planning to take a societal perspective or NHS and broader perspective, you would consider the system impacts. Wider than this, she emphasised the importance of bringing together stakeholders from across different parts of care pathways so they can make things better—delivering both cost savings and improved patient outcomes. Andi reflected positively on the work Gayatri and her colleagues had done in this area. He noted that their work around the three shifts in the 10 Year Health Plan had involved reviewing over 6,000 papers to find which were cash-releasing by seeking the evidence base in the published literature and the grey literature. He noted that in many cases, performing these interventions would not achieve savings as often it results in moving pressures around the system. For example, increasing activity in an acute organisation saves money there, but transfers in activity in primary care which increases costs there. The importance of looking at the system as a whole was emphasised. Digital developments Panellists also discussed how digital advances can unlock productivity gains in the NHS. An example provided was switching to digital communications in full; for instance, stopping the use of paper letters. It was noted that this is quite a simple change, but can potentially unlock huge cost savings, while in turn reducing or enabling the re-direction of administrative resources in other areas. However, how this is delivered in practice requires considerably effort to change how healthcare organisations work, with far more complexity sitting behind such proposals than may first be apparent. The example of using artificial intelligence (AI) more was also highlighted, which is another key element of the 10 Year Health Plan. It was noted that while currently our approach to the application of AI in the NHS is a little uneven, it could potentially unlock significant improvements in processes if applied correctly in future. Role of Integrated Care Boards Whether ICBs could play an important role in improving productivity was also discussed by the panel. With a renewed focus on their strategic commissioning role, there is significant potential for ICBs to drive forward NHS productivity. Stephen Rocks suggested that they could potentially help look at improving productivity through the lens of their role in maximising population health management. He said he would welcome seeing more work at an ICB level that could help us to understand how well their areas are doing in terms of outcomes, and considering going forward if there is potentially more of a role for outcomes-based contracting rather than paying through block contracts or for activity targets. Importance of leadership One final key area of reflection from panellists was how leadership relates to improving productivity in healthcare. Stephen Rocks said that The Health Foundation had recently held a event with people sharing their success stories in other sectors which bore out the importance of this. They noted that this stressed the importance not only of those at the top of the organisation, but also the vital role of middle management. He reflected that the people at the top set the vision, at the bottom are the ground people doing things, and in the middle you're having to respond to people and understand their concerns as well as trying to carry out that vision. Investment was needed across all these levels. Sanjiv Sharma also noted the need to balance this focus on helping those in leadership roles be the best they can be. Sanjiv emphasised the importance of having proper support mechanisms in place as too often we create environments in the healthcare system where people are faced with a “just get on and do it attitude”. Share your insights What are your views on how best to align patient safety and productivity? Share your thoughts on this article and the issues raised by commenting below (sign up first for free). Find out more about the Patient Safety Forum 2026 You can read more about different discussions and panel sessions at this year’s event in the below: Safe systems, safe cultures: reflections from the Patient Safety Forum 2026 Patient voice, safety and the NHS 10 Year Plan: Reflections from the Patient Safety Forum 2026 Designing AI with patient safety at its core: Reflections from the Patient Safety Forum 2026 Inside the NHS quality debate: Key takeaways from Penny Dash’s keynote at the Patient Safety Forum 2026

What does good consent look like in practice, and what are the patient safety consequences when patients are not truly informed? Join Radar Healthcare's webinar, Digital consent: How to deliver safer outcomes by bringing consent, risk and insight together, to explore the vital link between patient education, informed decision-making and safer care. Featuring perspectives from the Patients Association, Patient Information Forum, legal experts and frontline clinicians, this CPD-certified session will examine how organisations can strengthen consent processes, reduce risk and improve patient outcomes through better communication, education and insight. Register

The Ebola outbreak highlighted significant gaps in monitoring systems for healthcare professionals. Dynamic health information can be challenging to track and respond to effectively, increasing susceptibility to outbreaks of special pathogens. This webinar will describe operational challenges in post-exposure monitoring for Ebola and other special pathogens; explain how digital monitoring tools can strengthen healthcare workers’ safety; identify key design considerations for special pathogen monitoring systems; discuss how Ebola preparedness lessons can be applied to other special pathogens; evaluate how drills and simulations validate readiness; reveal near misses; test escalation pathways; improve coordination between occupational health, infection prevention, supervisors, emergency management, and public health; and recognise the importance of human oversight in digital preparedness systems. Register