There have been various definitions of safety culture – almost as many as there are people who write about it. One definition that captures the essence of safety culture is by Charles Vincent and is detailed in his book Patient Safety, published in 2010. He says safety culture is: “The product of the […] values, attitudes […] and patterns of behaviour that determine the commitment to, and […] proficiency of, an organisation’s health and safety programmes.” 

Here, he refers to values, attitudes and patterns of behaviour. Examples of values and attitudes that underlie a given organisation’s safety culture are:

• Following the procedures matters
• Safety is the responsibility of frontline workers
• It is worth investing resources into safety improvement
• We need to get the job done
• An incident will never happen here.