Patient safety – how can patients and families help improve it?

Patients and patient organisations play a key role in advocating for safer care, which should be promoted through empowerment and participation at all levels. Research suggests that “lay expertise” could be the backbone of patient safety, including in acute illness, but there are barriers – such as patients’ concerns not being taken seriously, persistent hierarchical culture, and the disempowering nature of many healthcare settings.

The session will start with a patient testimonial of one family’s experience, showing the rationale for patient and family involvement in improving safety. We will then hear examples of what is happening at international level, as well as being able to draw on national and local initiatives. Together with the audience, we will discuss the drivers and the resisters in the way of patient empowerment and consider how to achieve cultural change – moving from hierarchical and paternalistic to collaborative, open and participatory ways on engaging with the subject of patient safety.

Session moderator: Tamsin Rose, Senior Fellow, Friends of Europe

Keynote presentation: In safe hands? Maintaining the patient-caregiver relationship when harm has occurred

• Roisin and Mark Molloy, patient advocates & healthcare reform advisers

Patients advocating for patient safety – how patients and families can help

• EPF representative

How measuring patient-reported safety incidents can contribute to a patient safety culture

• Rie Fujisawa, position, OECD

Applying PRIMs and a “patient partner” approach in Belgian hospitals

• Laure Istas and Quentin Schoonvaere, Platform for Continuous Improvement of Quality of Care and Patient Safety (PAQS), Belgium

How to start changing culture through bringing together patients and healthcare managers

• Jim Phillips, Executive Director, Centre for Empowering Patients and Communities