Your chance to get involved in improving patient safety at GOSH

4 Jul 2023, 2:20 p.m.

A nurse tending to a patient

Keeping our patients safe is at the heart of everything we do at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH). We’d like your help to become even better by becoming a Patient Safety Partner.

The way every hospital within the NHS understands and learns from safety incidents is changing. In 2019 NHS England, the organisation that manages all NHS Trusts, shared a new plan called the Patient Safety Strategy.

We welcome the focus on listening to patients in this strategy. One of the ways all hospitals are expected to do this is through new roles, called the Patient Safety Partners (PSP). More information about what they are and how PSPs will work can be found here.

For us at GOSH, the PSPs will work closely with the people in the Trust whose job is to keep patients safe. They will act as the patient voice in meetings with senior leaders and help to develop projects and programmes aimed at making a patients experience of GOSH even better.

We’re aiming to have four PSPs at GOSH. Two young people (aged 16-21), who are current or former patients, and two parents or carers, who have experience of helping to support their loved one through treatment. Each of the four PSPs will be asked to spend the equivalent to two days a month supporting GOSH’s patient safety programmes and will be paid for their time. These PSPs will use their lived experience to help us develop our safety programmes in the Trust.

Claire Harrison, Director of Safety Surveillance who has led the development of the PSP role, said: "Engaging with our fantastic young patient advocates through the Young People’s forum has been absolutely fundamental, recognising their unique perspective and understanding exactly what safety means for them. The Patient Safety Partner role will build on this, putting patients at the heart of our senior-level work."

Jordan Nicholls, Safety Surveillance Manager from the project team said: “We want people who can help us make big safety decisions at Trust level and be willing to speak out about keeping the patient at the heart of what we do.”

For more information, please visit the role advert. If you have any questions, please contact jordan.nicholls@gosh.nhs.uk.