Patient Safety Specialists
The requirement for NHS organisations in England to identify 1 or more patient safety specialist (PSS) is an important aspect of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy and also features in the NHS Standard Contract.
PSSs provide dynamic senior leadership on patient safety in NHS providers and integrated care boards (ICBs), but also in some independent providers and arm’s length bodies. They are expected to have direct access to their executive team to facilitate the escalation of patient safety issues or concerns.
Role requirements for patient safety specialists
PSSs play a key role in the local implementation of the NHS Patient Safety Strategy, supporting the development of a patient safety culture, safety systems and improvement activity.
The role requirements for PSSs in providers and ICBs support NHS organisations in identifying individuals with the right skills and experience to take on the role. These also outline the purpose of PSSs and how we expect them to work in their organisation, as well as with local, regional and national partners.
Nationally identified priorities for the patient safety specialists
The PSSs are asked to prioritise the local implementation of the following areas from the NHS Patient Safety Strategy:
- supporting organisations to transition to and embed the Learn from Patient Safety Events (LFPSE) Service
- ongoing implementation of the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF)
- improving safety culture
- supporting the response to national patient safety alerts
- ongoing implementation of the framework for involving patients in patient safety
- improving patient safety education and training
- addressing patient safety improvement, including the implementation of Martha’s Rule in acute trusts
- improving patient safety in primary care
With the exception of the inclusion of primary care and the removal of medical examiners these are the same priority areas we identified in November 2022.
Supporting organisations to identify patient safety specialist(s)
Organisations yet to identify PSSs or wishing to replace or add specialists should follow the process below.
The relevant executive director with responsibility for patient safety must confirm they have considered the role requirements for patient safety specialists and email patientsafetyspecialists.info@nhs.net the name, email and contact number for the person they are identifying, as well as, where appropriate, those of the person they are replacing. It will also be helpful if they can include the current job title and pay band of any new PSSs, on the understanding that this information will not be shared more widely.