If there’s anything that the pandemic has highlighted, it’s that the importance of prioritising patient safety as a core responsibility across the entire system, is evident now more than ever. The pandemic has put immense pressure on healthcare staff and the system, making it increasingly difficult to sustain usual standards of care and patient safety. Now is a critical time to lock in lessons and embed positives from the past year – one of which being the acceleration of digital innovation over the last 18 months. So how can this window of opportunity be harnessed to improve patient safety and pre-empt harm?

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• Embedding a strong culture of safety is a continuing mission – where does digital come into play?

• The role of technology in enabling staff to shift from a reactive to a proactive approach, subsequently preventing avoidable harm

• Investing in the right infrastructure and helping your teams find the right balance between humans and technology to avoid over-reliance on automation

• Really committing to learning and enabling and supporting system-wide safety improvements

• Impact on reducing clinical negligence claims and costs to patients and the system