Patient Safety in Partnership

The AHSN Network has released an update to its patient safety plan, which reflects progress made across focus areas including managing deterioration in care homes; maternity and neonatal health; medicines safety; mental health; and system safety. The AHSN Network patient safety plan launched in 2019 and supports the NHS Patient Safety Strategy with a focus on substantially increasing the adoption and spread of safety improvements across health and care systems.

The report, 'Patient safety in partnership. Our plan for a safer future 2019-2025: Progress report,' highlights the programmes and initiatives that have been implemented by Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs), hosted by the fifteen AHSNs across England. The report also includes tangible impact measurements, which are helping to focus on where the need is and demonstrate improvements over time.

One of the key insights in the report is that work to manage deterioration in care homes has prevented up to 57,000 emergency admissions. Additionally, up to 465 babies’ lives have been saved through work to improve the care of premature infants.

Patient safety is a cross-cutting theme of the AHSN Network strategy. Acting as a guiding principle for all fifteen AHSNs, the dedicated patient safety plan sets out how AHSNs and Patient Safety Collaboratives (PSCs) contributed to delivering the National Patient Safety Improvement Programme and the AHSN focus on accelerating innovation.

Natasha Swinscoe, lead AHSN Network chief officer for patient safety said: “The AHSN Network remains committed to supporting the NHS Patient Safety Strategy. We work closely with our commissioners, system partners and front-line teams to support the delivery of improvement programmes, developing pipeline programmes and innovations and providing insight and real-world evaluation, in order to develop the future safety improvements we need.”

Read the full report: 'Patient safety in partnership. Our plan for a safer future 2019-2015: Progress report'.