World Patient Safety Day 2024
Published: 21 August 2024
This was published when the organisation was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
World Patient Safety Day (WPSD) is on Tuesday, 17 September 2024, and this year’s theme is Improving diagnosis for patient safety with the slogan: Get it right, make it safe!
This highlights the critical importance of correct and timely diagnosis in ensuring patient safety and improving health outcomes.
In relation to this year’s theme of “Improving diagnosis for patient safety” the RPS (now the Royal College of Pharmacy) is committed to making patient safety an integral part of our work. The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls for concerted efforts to significantly reduce diagnostic errors through interventions rooted in systems thinking, human factors and active engagement of patients, their families, health workers and health care leaders.
If you want to know more about WPSD, the WHO has more details.
Raising awareness of WPSD 2024
How can you raise awareness of World Patient Safety Day 2024 and improve diagnosis for patient safety?
Below, we’ve drawn up our top ten ways that pharmacists can ensure the safety of diagnostic processes and patient safety and improve health outcomes.
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Ten ways that you can help
1. If a diagnosis error occurs
Take it as a learning opportunity and a chance to review and improve current practice and work-based systems – reflect, be open and honest, review, record and report, act, share learning and evaluate by using our patient safety standards.
2. Identify any gaps in your knowledge and training needed
Use the competency framework for all prescribers, document your learning, any personal formularies you work to and update your portfolio of evidence to demonstrate your prescribing competencies.
3. Use our 12-step process to prescribe safely
Whether prescribing in person or remotely, use our 12-step process to prescribing safely through personal development and improving your practice. This can be found in our RPS Prescribing Safely and Confidently Pharmacy Guide.
4. Record all your clinical activities
Including findings, interventions, referrals, reviews, consultations, diagnosis, prescribing, administering, service delivery, decisions and advice. Your records should be detailed but concise, legible, up to date and accurate. This will protect you, support other teams and improve communication.
5. Speak up about your concerns
Feel empowered to speak up to relevant people and organisations when you have concerns about safeguarding, malpractice, wrongdoing or safety affecting patients, or colleagues.
6. Improve your practice and systems through audits
Performing regular audits, for example, on your prescribing practice or service, can help you measure, review and improve your practice and patient care. We can support you in preparing for and conducting clinical audits, and with clinical governance.
7. Look after your wellbeing and that of your team
Make sure you and your team are properly looked after.
8. Stay up to date with the profession
Get all the latest safety alerts and clinical knowledge by signing up to our patient safety alerts and webinars.
9. Share learning and good practice
Become a mentor – join our mentoring platform or become a designated prescribing practitioner (DPP). Join or build local peer support networks through work, study or course days or primary care networks.
10. Provide common conditions and ailments services
Including NHS Pharmacy First (England), NHS Pharmacy First Scotland and NHS Pharmacy First Plus (Scotland) and Community Pharmacy Wales Common Ailments Service (Wales).
“Whether responding to symptoms, diagnosing and managing disease or advising dose changes in response to blood biochemistry and drug levels, pharmacists are at the forefront of ensuring safe and effective care and have a pivotal role in ensuring accurate diagnosis and management of medical conditions. A number of initiatives are currently being delivered across Wales to support use of medication without harm.
We are all part of the shared mission to ensure that every medicine is used safely and effectively, with the patient at the heart of all we do. Together we will get medicines right and make them safe.”
Dr K Lynette James MPharm (Hons), PGCAP, ILM, FHEA, MRPharmS
Chair of the All-Wales Medicines Safety Network
“Scotland was the first country in the world to have a system-wide patient safety programme of this kind, and years after breaking new ground the programme continues today to work towards improving outcomes for patients.
World Patient Safety Day today is a valuable opportunity to support action to keep patients safe, and commit ourselves to maintaining this momentum. This year’s focus is on improving diagnostics for patient safety and here in Scotland this includes the work of vital programmes like our Scottish Strategic Network for Diagnostics.”
Dr John Harden
Scotland’s National Lead for Quality and Safety
“It’s great to be highlighting the importance of improving diagnosis for World Patient Safety Day. A correct, and timely diagnosis is essential to ensure that a person receives the right treatment plan for them and delays in this can impede outcomes. Through initiatives such as Martha’s Rule, we’re supporting patients, families, carers and staff to feel empowered to question if they have any worries or concerns about the treatment of a patient, and to escalate those concerns if they feel that a patient is deteriorating.
The upcoming Primary Care Patient Safety strategy aims to develop a supportive, learning environment and just culture in primary care, with sharing across the system so that the services can continually improve.”
Dr Aidan Fowler
National Director of Patient Safety, NHS England
Further reading on this year’s WPSD theme
The Pharmaceutical Journal have produced a range of learning and support resources that may be of interest and which align with this year’s World Patient Safety Day theme: Improving diagnosis for patient safety. These include:
Diagnosis
- Assessment and diagnosis for prescribers
- How to identify red-flag symptoms and refer patients appropriately
- How to provide patients with safety-netting advice.
Dispensing and medicines administration errors
- Understanding dispensing errors and risk
- Case study: an error with a medicine containing arachis oil
- The impact of a medicines administration pharmacist on patient safety and medicines management: a service evaluation.
Medicines incidents
Pharmacy-led initiatives
- Pharmacists can do more to bridge the safety gaps for people with learning disabilities
- A digital approach to improving valproate safety
- Families are struggling to use medicines at home — we must truly involve them in their own safety.
Prescribing
- Prescribing errors in children: why they happen and how to prevent them
- The top ten prescribing errors in practice and how to avoid them.
Quality improvement
- Adopting a quality improvement approach to patient safety incidents
- Using critical incident data to promote paediatric medication safety: a regional quality improvement initiative in Northern Ireland
- Impact of electronic prescribing on patient safety in hospitals: implications for the UK.
For further information on World Patient Safety Day and what previous themes have been, see the WHO website.
National patient safety guidance
- England – The NHS Patient Safety Strategy
- Scotland – Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP)
- Wales – Improvement Cymru Strategy.
Previous/future World Patient Safety Days
- World Patient Safety Day 2026 (coming soon)
- World Patient Safety Day 2025