A Compendium of Safety Strategies and Interventions

Abstract

The foundational ideas which have informed our thinking are essentially quite simple but hard won in the sense that they are not for the most part embedded in current thinking. We have argued that we need to view safety through the patient's eyes and that safety needs to be approached very differently in the varying settings along the patient journey. This implies in turn that we need to think more explicitly about what kind of safety strategies are most useful in different contexts. We can now draw these themes together and consider the new directions that emerge.In this chapter we fi rst review the ideas and arguments of the book and summarise the transitions in patient safety that we believe are needed (Box 11.1 ). We then set out a compendium of safety and risk management strategies which can be selected, combined and customised to any healthcare setting.