Last month, the Health Innovation Network published the National Patient Safety Improvement Programmes report for 2024-25, highlighting its impact and progress over the course of the year.
The Programme supports the NHS Patient Safety Strategy’s aim for the NHS to continuously improve patient safety, and its ambition to save 1,000 extra lives and £100 million in care costs each year. It is further supported by the Health Innovation Network’s 15 Patient Safety Collaboratives, hosted by the 15 health innovation networks who support delivery of the National Patient Safety Improvement Programme at a regional level across the country.
The Programme aims to test and spread effective safety interventions and strategies, learn from excellence and support systems to continuously improve. It focuses on doing this in four priority areas: Maternity and Neonatal, Medicines Safety, System Safety and Managing Deterioration.
To date, our work to support the Programme and wider patient safety initiatives has meant:
- 364 mothers have been prevented from getting a surgical site infection through our PreCiSSion programme.
- 165 lives have been saved to date in the West of England through use of our non-invasive ventilation care bundle.
- 17 lives have been saved in the West of England by reducing chronic opioids through our Medicines Safety Improvement Programme.
- 3,400+ premature babies have been cared for in the South West using the PERIPrem bundle which consists of 11 interventions that demonstrate a significant impact on brain injury and mortality rates.
- 487 people in the West of England have had the risk of opioid-related death halved through our Medicines Safety Improvement Programme.
- 5,898 healthcare professionals across England have engaged to date in our national Polypharmacy Programme education and training.
In supporting the National Patient Safety Programme, working across the three integrated care systems in the region, we also supported the pilot of Martha’s Rule – a major patient safety initiative in hospitals encouraging patients, families and carers to speak to the care team if they notice changes in someone’s condition. As a result of this work, six hospital sites in the region piloted Martha’s Rule across their acute services and inpatient wards and NHS England announced today that Martha’s Rule has now been rolled out to all acute hospitals across the country.
You can find out more about our work to support the National Patient Safety Improvement Programme here on our website. Also, look out for our patient safety blog on 17 September to mark International World Patient Safety Day 2025. We’ll be talking to Ann Remmers, Maternity and Neonatal Clinical Lead and Jenn Garner, Senior Project Manager and Midwife, about key areas of our work and impact in in this area. The blog will be published on our website and promoted on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Posted on September 4, 2025
