The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7441 p236
3 March 2007

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Society joins other health organisations in patient safety pledge

The heads of a number of health care organisations, including Hemant Patel, President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, have signed a public commitment to improve patient safety and to ensure that patient safety is a priority in their organisation's work (PDF 710K).

The pledge was made at a summit hosted by the National Patient Safety Agency and the Healthcare Commission in London last week. Organisations signing the charter will:

• Ensure that safe patient care is a priority

• Encourage engagement with and contributions from health service staff, organisations, patients and the public

• Actively exchange information, data and intelligence when it is appropriate to do so in the interests of patients’ safety

• Encourage all those responsible for providing health care to report adverse events and near misses

• Work together on initiatives to improve the safety of care

• Contribute to the creation of a culture and environment that promotes improvement and learning by individuals, organisations and systems, to prevent harm

The pledge follows a similar commitment made by a number of medical and dental organisations (PJ, 4 November 2006, p534).