A study for the Department of Health and the Design Council into design and patient safety. It proposed a system-wide design-led approach across the NHS and highlights how design can be used to cut the risk of medical errors and accidents within healthcare environments. A research partnership with the Universities of Surrey and Cambridge.
The health service is a highly pressured, complex system where the potential for error and incidents is ever present. International research suggests that ensuring patient safety is becoming one of the most important challenges facing healthcare today.
In 2000, a report, An organisation with a memory, was published by the DoH, which proposed a new strategy to report, analyse and learn from adverse events involving NHS patients. This strategy also recognised the key role design can play in delivering safer healthcare products, services, processes and environments. It recommended that pre-emptive action should be undertaken to identify opportunities for improved patient safety through the more effective use of design.
The Design for Patient Safety initiative responded to this need, and investigated how the effective use of design could improve patient safety in a whole system context. The research included widespread consultation with deliverers and practitioners of healthcare; experts from industries where safety is a prime concern; representatives from the pharmaceutical and medical devices industries; patient support groups and designers.
Published in October 2003 by the DoH, the short form report Design for Patient Safety: a system-wide design-led approach to tackling patient safety in the NHS summarises the key points and recommendations arising from the Study. The full research and evidence-base from the study was later published in its entirety by EDC Cambridge, as Design for patient safety: a scoping study to identify how the effective use of design could help to reduce medical accidents.
The report was endorsed by the Chief Medical Officer, and awarded the President’s Medal of the Ergonomics Society as an outstanding contribution to research.
The study was commissioned by the UK Department of Health with the Design Council and the NHS National Patient Safety Agency.
This research has been the springboard for many subsequent projects in design to improve patient safety and has underpinned the HHC’s evidence-based approach to design for healthcare.
