Patient Safety Syllabus

About the Patient Safety Syllabus

In July 2019, NHS England and NHS Improvement launched the NHS National Patient Safety Strategy. A key element of this is the development and implementation of a patient safety syllabus, which was created by Academy of Medical Royal Colleges (AoMRC) based on a proactive approach to the prevention of harm. UCLPartners is working in partnership with the Chartered Institute for Ergonomics and Human Factors’ (CIEHF) Lantern Group to support Trusts across London to assess their readiness to implement the syllabus through the development of an organisational self-assessment tool. This work has been commissioned by Health Education England (HEE).

Our approach

UCLPartners worked alongside our existing patient safety and education networks, to share expertise and enable collaboration between patient safety leadership and patient safety educators.  

To achieve this, a period of field work was undertaken with support from patient safety experts and researchers, collaborating with local patient safety leaders, educators, and multi-professional teams to map maturity and fluency in the science of contemporary patient safety. Through conducting interviews with patient safety leaders and educators, UCLPartners mapped organisational patient safety maturity and educational capacity to understand the learning needs of frontline teams. Using this data, UCLP and CIEHF developed an organisational self-assessment tool for patient safety maturity and educational capability, which will articulate organisational readiness to deliver the Syllabus.

Timescales and next steps

The organisational self-assessment tool has been developed alongside a Facilitator’s Guide. Read it here.