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Upholding patient safety and ensuring the highest possible standards of patient care have been at the heart of the College’s activity since it was founded over 500 years ago. The  Patient Safety Group supports and coordinates all the College’s Patient Safety initiatives. We have a multidisciplinary membership drawn from all the faculties of the College and including representation from both the wider surgical team and patients themselves. 

Over the years, the College has worked hard to develop numerous resources to help improve patient safety. These have taken many forms and include: 

Training Courses: 

These include the highly successful NOTSS Programme, and Courses, which aim to educate the whole peri-operative team in the non-technical skills which underpin safe operative surgery and dentistry, and the innovative workshop which was developed with patients to provide training in sharing the complex decisions involved in informed consent. 

Team Based Quality Reviews for Surgical Practice workshop seeks to embed evidence-based structure into significant event review processes through the provision of training, educational resources, tools and frameworks underpinned by Human Factors and Systems Thinking sciences. Support is provided into how to follow a system-based approach, capture multiple perspectives from the wider healthcare team as well as patients, maximize learning, and, very importantly, ensure a non-threatening atmosphere and blame-free culture. 

workshop explores the impact of mistakes on all those involved; looking at how best to support and prepare each other; and how we might appropriately respond to patients and their families in the aftermath. Making and living with mistakes is a core part of what it means to be a surgeon, yet it is seldom discussed. Many trainees feel ill-prepared to cope with the burden this can bring; many senior surgeons are still troubled by the legacy of past mistakes in their practice. 

workshop explores the causes and impact of conflict within the surgical workplace and discusses different strategies to address this, including how to have difficult conversations, the art of negotiation and how to approach challenging situations. These skills will help foster closer working relationships leading to more productive teamwork. 

Web-based Resources: These include the Surgical Ward Round Toolkit which aims to reduce errors and improve safety on surgical ward rounds. 

Patient Safety Webinars: This very popular featured contributions from renowned world experts in the patient safety arena drawn from a wide range of disciplines. 

Let's Talk Surgery Patient Safety Podcast Series: These experts have also contributed to the College’s podcast series allowing more in-depth personal discussion on key Patient Safety topics. 

Surgeons News Articles: The Patient Safety Group has published a large number of articles in Surgeons News covering a broad range of patient safety topics. 

ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Annual Audit & Quality Improvement Symposium: This popular event provides opportunity for surgical and dental trainees to present and receive feedback on their audit and quality improvement projects. There is a dedicated patient safety session, incorporating a keynote lecture from an expert in the patient safety field, along with the presentation of a patient safety medal to the trainee delivering the best patient safety presentation. 

: We have also worked with the University of Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh Surgery On-Line Programme to develop a 3-year part time MSc in Patient Safety and Clinical Human Factors. This 3-year part-time programme supports any graduate health care professional in using evidence-based tools to improve the safety of everyday health care systems. 

The MacLeod McLaren Patient Safety Team Medal: This prestigious medal, established in 2025, celebrates the efforts of multidisciplinary teams who focus on improving patient safety in either clinical settings or through research. 

National Campaigns: A cornerstone of the ºìÐÓÊÓƵ’s efforts in embedding a safer culture is the #LetsRemoveit campaign, launched in 2017 to address bullying & undermining in the surgical workforce, and extended in 2024 to focus on stamping out sexual misconduct in surgery. The online hub offers an extensive suite of tools for the whole perioperative team, including posters designed for display in theatre, wards & teaching areas as well as prepared presentations to stimulate conversation on poor behaviours. 

National Guidelines: ºìÐÓÊÓƵ have also developed several national guidelines to influence healthcare policy & improve the working environment, such as Improving the Working Environment for Safe Surgical Care, Improving Safety Out of Hours and Raising Concerns, Whistleblowing and Speaking Up. 

Staff Resilience and Wellbeing: We also recognize that staff resilience and wellbeing is a major factor in helping to ensure safe patient care. Improving surgical team wellbeing and mental health has been a major focus for the College over the last year. ºìÐÓÊÓƵ Trainees’ Committee has taken the lead in this and the Patient Safety Group have been proud to support them in this endeavour. 

The Committee have run very successful wellbeing weeks over recent years. These raised the awareness of the importance of wellbeing amongst all members of the surgical team and included various activities such as daily webinars, virtual workshops and sessions on cooking, mindfulness, yoga, art and how to make work fun. CPD points for the webinars in the series were provided, underlining the importance that the College places on this subject. 

We are also proud to be able to endorse the which describes the principles that guide the wellbeing of doctors and the shared responsibilities for wellbeing of the medical profession. 

Patient, Carer Support: The Patient Safety Group has worked hard over the last few years to develop high quality, innovative and accessible resources to support surgical and dental patients and their carers. It is hoped that these resources will help patients to better navigate surgical care and empower them to be advocates for their own health. 

Please visit the College’s website and social media channels for more information on all these patient safety resources. It is great to be able to share these with you and to help raise awareness of the importance of patient safety in our everyday surgical and dental practice.