Our five Sign up to Safety pledges
1. Putting safety first
Commit to reduce avoidable harm in the NHS by half and make public our locally developed goals and plans
The Oxford AHSN Patient Safety Collaborative (PSC) is committed to reducing harm to patients in healthcare, both in acute hospitals, but also across the patient pathway in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. We are working with our local partners to identify the clinical areas that they wish to focus on. Our four initial clinical workstreams are
- Reducing Acute Kidney Injury (AKI)
- Reducing Pressure Ulcers
- Safety in Mental Health
- Improving Medication Safety.
We also act as an umbrella organisation for coordinating patient safety initiatives to address risks and vulnerabilities across the healthcare system.
2. Continually learn
Make our organisation more resilient to risks, by acting on the feedback from patients and staff and by constantly measuring and monitoring how safe our services are.
The Oxford AHSN Patient and Public Involvement, Engagement and Experience (PPIEE) theme is working to embed partnership with patients and the public across the AHSN region. The three tiered approach provides the foundation for patient safety by involving patients, carers, families and the public to improve care delivery, improve their own care, and listening to their experience of care. Each clinical workstream will embed these principles as core to their approach to improving safety.
Our measurement approach remains true to the values of quality improvement and we will work with our partners to measure and research for improvement, rather than for judgement, encouraging data sharing across organisations to promote learning.
3. Being honest
Be transparent with people about our progress to tackle patient safety issues and support staff to be candid with patients and their families if something goes wrong
The Oxford AHSN PSC will work openly with all partners on the progress of our patient safety workstreams. We will engage work together to agree what constitutes meaningful success in our patient safety work from patient, carer, staff and organisational perspectives. We will work together to interrogate data to identify variation within local organisational care processes as well as across systems, and agree how to address issues in a collaborative manner.
4. Collaborating
Take a lead role in supporting local collaborative learning, so that improvements are made across all of the local services that patients use.
The PSC is home to a number of groups and networks working to improve patient safety including:
- the Patient Safety Academy (PSA)
- the South of England Improving Safety in Mental Health Collaborative
- Oxford Simulation, Teaching and Research (OxSTaR)
- the Patient Safety Federation (PSF)
This local collaboration is designed to improve patient safety across the region by building capacity in safety improvement in services and across systems.
5. Being supportive
Help people understand why things go wrong and how to put them right. Give staff the time and support to improve and celebrate progress.
In each of its programmes, workstreams and networks, the Oxford AHSN PSC will work to understand risks and vulnerabilities in local care systems and processes. We will support patients and staff to become curious about errors and defects and ambitious about improving patient safety.