Feature
NURSING MANAGEMENT April 2009 | Volume 16 | Number 1 31
of avoidable harm and death, rather than set a
national target for the number of lives to be saved.
to fulfil these aims will be challenging given the
many competing priorities, such as the need to meet
waiting time and financial targets.
there is clearly a commitment at national level
to a change in the culture of healthcare services,
as is indicated by recent policy documents, including
health minister Lord Darzi's High Quality Care for
All: NHS Next Stage Review final report (Department
of Health (DH) 2008), that focus on patient safety
and the quality of patients' experiences.
there is also great interest and commitment
to patient safety at a local level: 80 per cent of
acute trusts in england have signed up to the
campaign and there has been interest also from
community services.
the campaign focuses on the application of
five interventions that have been shown to reduce
avoidable risks and harm associated with health care
in acute settings (Box 1).
the first of these interventions concerns the
improvement of leadership to ensure patient safety.
It underpins all the work to improve safety, and can
be applied beyond the acute sector.
Leadership
Crucial to the Patient Safety First Campaign is the
recognition of the importance of effective leadership,
first and foremost at board level but also at all other
levels of healthcare organisations.
Without leaders with the will, knowledge and
ability to implement change, there is little chance of
reducing the incidence of adverse events.
according to Flin et al (2008), leadership for safety
can be exercised at all levels, and nursing staff can
play a leading role by providing highly visible support
for improving safety in all parts of the NHs.
the Patient Safety First Campaign asks that
leaders focus on six areas of action (Box 2).
Setting explicit strategic priorities all healthcare
organisations should have clear strategic priorities
to improve patient safety.
they should show that patient safety is a
priority on board agendas equal to that of financial
performance, and should identify safety targets
at all levels and departments. setting ambitious
safety targets can motivate clinical teams to make
lasting improvements.
a well-practised method of ensuring that patient
safety is given the necessary attention by leaders
is to set aims for improvement. these aims can
be applied either trust-wide or to specific wards
or departments.
Box 1 The five interventions of the Patient Safety First Campaign
1. Leadership for safety.
2. Reducing harm from deterioration, for example by use of an early warning score to identify patients needing rapid intervention and treatment.
3. Reducing harm in critical care through, for example, the reliable application of central line and ventilator care bundles.
4. Reducing harm in perioperative care by, for example, preventing surgical site infections and implementing the World Health Organization
(WHO 2008) surgical safety checklist.
5. Reducing harm from high-risk medicines including anticoagulants, opiates, injectable sedatives and insulin.
The reliable application
of central line bundles is
one of the Patient Safety
First Campaign interventions
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