Patient Safety

RCSEd is committed to the global health priority of patient safety

All of the work of The College is underpinned by a commitment to improving patient safety. See more on why it is important to us here.

Patient safety is embedded in our rigorous professional standards

Upholding patient safety and ensuring the highest standards of patient care are core values of the College, with our multidisciplinary patient safety group coordinating the College’s approach to this global health priority. Patient safety is embedded in the rigorous professional standards that run through all our core educational, examination and audit activities. We develop and run specific courses promoting the integration of patient safety training and assessment into the curricula of all surgical specialities – for example human factors training.

Dedicated to improving the delivery of safe surgical care - for staff and patients alike

A critical factor in ensuring patient safety is through improving the wellbeing of the surgical workforce and we are dedicated to improving the delivery of safe surgical care within the working environment for all involved. Through liaising with external bodies, establishing links with sister organisations, publishing influential reports and running sector-wide campaigns we seek to influence healthcare policy to enhance patient safety.

What we do	Find out more and get involved
Develop training resources and run courses and CPD	We run the Non-Technical Skills for Surgeons programme, featuring a wide variety of resources including courses, e-Learning, introductory videos and a handbook We also offer the Ward-round Non-technical skills for Surgery (WANTSS) e-Learning module, designed to improve clinical performance and patient safety on surgical ward-rounds We offer human factors training for Perioperative Care Practitioners training through the PINTS course The Faculty of Dental Trainers is also developing its own human factors taxonomy, DeNTS We work with our partners, the University of Edinburgh to deliver the MSc Patient Safety and Clinical Human Factors as part of the Edinburgh Surgery Online portfolio Our Informed Consent (ICONS) workshop was developed in collaboration with patients The Surgical Ward Round Toolkit was developed to reduce errors and improve safety on surgical wards
Influence healthcare policy	We published the Improving the working environment for safe surgical care paper, providing recommendations aimed at improving safety in the delivery of surgical treatment and patient care We developed a set of standards to tackle bullying and undermining in healthcare aimed at enhancing patient safety and improving staff wellbeing Our #LetsRemoveIt campaign aims to tackle bullying and harassment in the workplace and to deliver safe and effective patient care Bullying and undermining can have a detrimental effect on patient safety. We collaborated with a range of organisations to produce The Anti-Bullying Alliance resource, providing an overview of the many initiatives designed to tackle bullying and undermining across the sector. Our vigorous lobbying campaign led to MPs voting against unethical, experimental treatments, achieving a significant victory for patient safety We joined 16 other Royal Colleges and medical organisations in writing to the UK Prime Minister to consider the implications for patient safety during the Government's decision making and negotiations with the EU.
Enhance and uphold standards	Our Professional Standards Office is responsible for ensuring that our core activities are focusing on continuously improving patient care and surgical standards.

Patient Safety

RCSEd is committed to the global health priority of patient safety

Patient safety is embedded in our rigorous professional standards

Dedicated to improving the delivery of safe surgical care - for staff and patients alike

What we do

Find out more and get involved

Develop training resources and run courses and CPD

Influence healthcare policy

Enhance and uphold standards

Catch up on our recent blog series for World Patient Safety Day:

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Birmingham Regional Centre

The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s International Office