Patient Safety - Specialists and Partners
Patient Safety Specialists (PSSs)
Patient Safety Specialists (PSSs) are individuals in healthcare organisations who have been designated to provide dynamic senior patient safety leadership. Each PSS is dedicated to providing expert patient safety support to their organisation.
PSSs facilitate the escalation of patient safety issues or concerns, play a key role in local implementation of the national NHS Patient Safety Strategy, and support the development of a patient safety culture, safety systems and improvement activity.
At Somerset ICB we have four PSSs who are supported to deliver the national patient safety priorities by the rest of the ICB's Quality, Safety & Improvement Team, contactable at somicb.patientsafety@nhs.net.
Involving patients and Patient Safety Partners (PSPs)
The NHS Patient Safety Strategy recognises the importance of involving patients, their families and carers and other lay people in improving the safety of NHS care, as well as the role that patients and carers can have as partners in their own safety. The Framework for involving patients in patient safety was published in 2021 and is relevant to all NHS trusts and commissioners. It is also useful to other NHS settings, including primary care and community services that are considering how they can involve patients in safety. Integrated Care Systems should consider how patients can be involved as part of safety governance processes as we develop and mature.
The second part of this framework details Patient Safety Partner (PSPs) involvement in organisational safety and relates to the role that patients, carers and other lay people can play in supporting and contributing to a healthcare organisation’s governance and management processes for patient safety. PSPs represent the patient voice when discussing safety concerns and offer a different perspective when decisions are being made in relation to patient safety.
Roles of a PSP can include:
- membership at safety and quality committees whose responsibilities include the review and analysis of safety data;
- involvement in patient safety improvement projects;
- working with organisation boards to consider how to improve safety;
- involvement in staff patient safety training;
- participation in investigation oversight groups.
At Somerset ICB we have two dedicated PSPs.
