Patient Safety: from Vision to Reality

Patient safety is a critical global public health issue and is essential if health systems are to advance and achieve universal health coverage (UHC). Every year, an inadmissible number of patients are harmed or die because of unsafe and poor-quality healthcare, exerting a very high global burden especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Even before the pandemic, 1 in 10 patients in high-income countries were harmed from safety lapses during their hospital care. This number is greater in LMICs where adverse events in healthcare contribute to around 2.6 million hospital deaths each year. With the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, patient safety has become an even more crucial area for international cooperation.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland invites you to join a high-level event on patient safety, co-sponsored by the World Health Organization, to:

• Illustrate the scale and significant burden of avoidable harm in healthcare globally and its impact on patients, families, healthcare workers, health system finances, communities and societies.
• Advocate a vision for eliminating avoidable harm in healthcare and demonstrate the need to prioritise patient safety as a global health priority, including by supporting strategic patient safety initiatives.
• Advocate for all countries to designate patient safety officers responsible for the coordination of patient safety implementation at national and facility levels.