Patient safety partners
Patient safety partners are an exciting new role within the NHS and will be a key voice for patients and the community who use our services, and an important part of helping us to improve safety and quality.
Patient safety partners will:
- help make sure that patient safety is at the heart of all we do
- be members of safety and quality committees
- be involved in patient safety improvement projects
- work with our board to consider how to improve safety
- get involved in staff patient safety training
- be a part of investigation oversight groups
We now have patient safety partners who work with us to influence and improve safety.
Meet our patient safety partners
Kirsten Broadhead
Why did you chose to become a patient safety partner?
After completing my masters in Psychology, one module that stuck with me was patient safety. After doing some research I came across this role and wanted to be involved to contribute to helping others and develop a greater understanding of Patient Safety whilst actively being involved in shaping the future.
What are you most excited about in your new role?
By applying what I have learnt during my masters and having this opportunity to work in a multi-disciplinary team, I am excited to help make a difference and be involved in something bigger to help others and give voice to patients.
Mark Smith
Why did you chose to become a patient safety partner?
I have been involved with patient safety at a national level with NHS England for about 10 years. This included the original work on patient safety specialists and patient safety partners, as well as the national patient safety response advisory panel which are responsible for NHS England national patient safety alerts.
My main area of work started out looking at how to tweak the serious incident response framework which became the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF) for the last eight years and have presented upon this to local regional and national groups as well as at national and international conferences.
I have been a member of the Trust drugs and therapeutics committee for 11 years showing a long term interest in medicine and therapeutics safety. I wanted to get more involved in safety issues within the Trust, hence my decision to apply for this post.
What are you most excited about in your new role?
I am excited to help develop the patient safety partner role within the Trust and contribute to the improvement of patient safety within the organisation.
I wish to help the Trust implement national patient safety initiative to help the organisation become a national exemplar for patient safety.
Finally, I think this work will help me ensure that national patient safety initiatives can be relevant and applicable to mental health and community Trusts.
Mark has also given an interview about his passion for patient safety to the Patient Safety Learning Hub which you can read here.
Andy Reynolds
Why did you choose to become a patient safety partner?
I feel that I am able give a different point of view and look at things differently as I am a person with lived experience, I can help shape the safety of patients using the services in the Trust. With having lived experience of mental health and having a lot of help in the past from services I would like to be able to give something back. I also wanted to learn about patient safety and how the service works.
What are you most excited about in your new role?
I am excited about meeting and working with new people. I would also like to work with the different services within the Trust. I think I can make a difference by bringing my skills in the engaging and involving patients when an incident occurs. I am also excited to gain more skills and knowledge and developing how I share my ideas.
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