Friday, September 17 is the World Patient Safety Day, an initiative by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to enhance global understanding of patient safety. In the lead to the day, Chief Nurse Marie Crofts shares her thoughts on creating a safe culture.

To Marie, creating a safe environment for everyone to work in is fundamental for delivering safe services.

“There are many aspects to this,” Marie says. “One is about openness and transparency, really feeling able to raise concerns and speak up when things go wrong – but also when they go well.

“A key about speaking up and investigating incidents is learning from them and how we embed that learning in practice,” she says.

Marie notes the importance of quality improvement:

“To me that means that everybody in the organisation, whatever their role, has the permission to change things and use the quality improvement methodology and the team around them if they see that something isn’t quite right or could be improved. That really starts to create and embed a safety culture.”

“Another component of [safe culture] is compassionate leadership and compassionate care. Linked that is kindness; being kind to one another and to people who use our services.  I do see a lot of that when I go around the organisation,” Marie says.

“What our organisation is embarking on is something some other organisations have started already: restorative just culture. That is the bedrock of everything, creating psychological safety so that people feel safe to raise concerns,” Marie says.

Marie concludes with a call to action:

“I would like you to think this week and particularly on the World Patient Safety Day: What can you do as an individual member or staff, whatever you do, to really help create a safe culture for all of us?”