2 minute read
World Patient Safety Day
contribute to better healthcare. We work in close partnership and collaboration with the HSE and other healthcare agencies in Ireland.”
Peter McKenna, Clinical Director with The National Women and Infants Health Programme (NWIHP), said one of the ‘cornerstones’ of the National Maternity Strategy is patient safety and ‘arguably it could be said to be the most important’.
LEFT AND BELOW: Staff from the Quality & Patient Safety Department, UHL and UMHL who hosted information stands and created awareness with patients, staff and visitors during World Patient Safety Day 2021.
Safe Maternal and Newborn Care was the theme of this year’s World Patient Safety Day, which took place in September. World Patient Safety Day is an opportunity to promote healthcare safety, increase awareness about patient safety and recognise the work already under way.
Dr Colm Henry, HSE Chief Clinical Officer, highlighted patient safety as a key priority for the HSE.
“We are committed to the implementation of the Patient Safety Strategy and the improvement of quality and patient safety throughout all our services. It has been a tough and unprecedented 18 months, but throughout this pandemic our healthcare staff have adapted to the crisis and have constantly endeavoured to provide the highest quality care possible. For these extraordinary efforts we are grateful,” said Dr Henry.
Dr Orla Healy, HSE National Clinical Director for Quality and Patient Safety Directorate, explained that keeping patients and everyone in our services safe is the priority for all of us who work in healthcare.
“The HSE Quality and Patient Safety Directorate is committed to working with you, our patients and our staff, to make our services as safe as they can be; to acknowledge when things go wrong and to learn and improve our services for all our patients and those in our care,” she said.
Patients for Patient Safety is based on a World Health Organisation initiative that aims to improve patient safety in healthcare, working in collaboration with the health services.
“We believe that every individual patient experience, from birth to end of life, should have safe care as a core principle,” said Tibbs Pereira, from Patients for Patient Safety.
“Our members have a unique relationship with patient safety issues as a result of our experience. We participate in activities that engage patients as advocates to influence all aspects of patient care. We actively
NWIHP was founded in 2017 in order to drive on the values of the National Maternity Strategy, which came out in 2016.
“We gather information on patient safety from a multitude of sources in the HSE. The only point really of collecting this information is so that we can target resources at making our services safer,” he said.
“Safety is not an add-on to our service. It is a fundamental core component of it, and this is what we must work to achieve at everything that we do.”
