“We have tended to focus on problems in isolation, one harm at a time, and our efforts have been simplistic and myopic. If we are to save more lives and significantly reduce patient harm, we need to adopt a holistic, systematic approach that extends across cultural, technological and procedural boundaries – one that is based on the evidence of what works”. Ara Darzi
The ideas, methods and approach for Sign up to Safety represents fifteen years of work by the campaign team, in particular from a previous campaign patient safety first and lessons we have learnt since about large scale change from across the globe including patient safety campaigns in other countries.
Year one was all about participation. Year two in summary is about ongoing participation, spread and reach into areas of low participation together with bringing to life our five pledges. We will continue to energise and galvanise the NHS in England to deliver locally led, self-directed safety improvement and use new approaches to capture what is going on locally and share what people are doing at scale under the overarching brand of Sign up to Safety.
We will help explore and address the implementation gap under our beneath the surface sub-brand
And help revise patient safety thinking under our re(think) sub-brand of Sign up to Safety to shift the focus from one harm at a time towards a more systematic approach to safety which focuses on addressing system and human factors.
“The NHS needs a profound transformation in its culture”
The campaign is providing a niche role not provided anywhere else in the system and aims to be different by:
- Engaging, energising and mobilising individuals and organisations across the whole of the NHS in England to create the conditions for a safety culture, a just culture, a learning culture
- Using a consistent approach to help locally led, self-directed improvement and providing tools and resources to help over 280 organisations ‘own’ the campaign locally; making it meaningful for their staff, patients and community while at the same time being part of something bigger which unites them around a shared cause across the whole of the NHS in England
- Creating an innovative way of sharing how change is achieved and not just what is achieved
Patient Safety Now 