As well as patients, their family or carers becoming involved in their own or their loved one’s safety, they can also become involved in the governance of safety activities for an organisation as a whole. As such, healthcare professionals can work with patients to improve safety across the whole healthcare system.

Patient representation

Patients are represented in some NHS organisations, the most well-known being Patient Participation Groups at GP surgeries, and via patient involvement on hospital trust boards, usually supported by a senior board member with a responsibility for patient safety who is known as a Patient Safety Specialist. Patients and carers in these roles aim to improve the patient experience and can help identify and suggest improvements to patient safety. They are often patients who have themselves experienced harm.

Sometimes recommendations arising from a patients’ own care can be translated into learning which can then extend to the wider organisation and beyond. This usually occurs when the good practice brought about by involvement is shared in a similar way to professionals learning from incidents.

Patient safety partners

The NHS Patient Safety Strategy advocates the involvement of Patient Safety Partners. Since the publication of the strategy, NHS England and NHS Improvement have been developing a framework for involving patients in patient safety to describe how this partnership will work.

Practice point

• Think about what you have learnt about patient and public involvement in patient safety. Make some notes on the changes that you are going to make in your practice.

Once you've completed this module, move onto:
Part six: Huddles
Part seven: Making improvements to patient safety
Part eight: The second victim phenomenon
But be sure to click next to complete this module first.