Dr Jennifer Creese, SAPPHIRE, University of Leicester explains the work of the team for the Enhancing cultures of safety theme at the National Institute for Health and Care Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaboration (NIHR GM PSRC).

NHS England define “a positive safety culture as one where the environment is collaboratively crafted, created, and nurtured so that everybody (individual staff, teams, patients, service users, families, and carers) can flourish to ensure … safe care.”

A strong organisational safety culture is the key to helping healthcare organisations reach their highest potential in patient safety. As part of our vision to make health and care systems safer, our team of experts in patient safety and organisational culture in health and social care will be researching key issues within the “Enhancing cultures of safety” theme.

Professors Natalie Armstrong and Carolyn Tarrant, from the University of Leicester lead this theme. Both Carolyn and Natalie are recognised global experts in qualitative (research that’s informed by hearing from those with lived experience) healthcare improvement research. The work draws on their experience of sociology and psychology. Their research group, SAPPHIRE (Social Science, Applied Healthcare & Improvement Research) is internationally renowned for its methods in healthcare quality and safety research.

They are joined by four colleagues at the University of Leicester with expertise in healthcare organisational cultures, workforce issues and patient safety:

• Dr Jennifer Creese: a sociocultural anthropologist with a special interest in cultures and identities of healthcare professions
• Dr Kate Kirk: a practicing Emergency Department nurse and researcher interested in organisational behaviour in healthcare, and particularly workforce wellbeing
• Associate Professor Nicola Mackintosh: a sociologist with a background in critical care nursing, interested in local patient safety cultures and organisational response systems
• Dr Farhad Peerally: a clinical-academic gastroenterologist with interests in health services and patient safety.

A collaborative approach is central to this theme. The Leicester-based researchers are joined by seven expert colleagues from the University of Manchester, with expertise in healthcare management, law, human factors and psychology:

• Professor Sharon Clarke: an organisational psychologist with interests in safety culture, safety leadership and wellbeing in organisations, especially in safety-critical contexts.
• Dr Sarah Devaney: a senior lecturer in health law and regulation with a particular interest in the law’s role in enhancing patient safety.
• Dr Jane Ferguson,: a lecturer in healthcare management with a particular interest in the working lives of healthcare professionals
• Dr Victoria Moore: a lecturer in healthcare law with interests in healthcare law and regulation, and patient safety
• Dr Denham Phipps: an organisational psychologist and lecturer with interests in human factors, ergonomics and risk management in healthcare
• Professor Catherine Robinson: Professor of Social Policy Research with a particular interest in social care services
• Professor Kieran Walshe: Professor of Health Policy and Management with a particular interest in health professions regulation.

Patient experiences, perspectives and priorities are at the heart of this research and its goals. The academic research team is complemented by two Public and Community Involvement and Engagement (PCIE) experts whose lived experiences help to drive research priorities, design and impact:

• Mr Manoj Mistry: a family carer with more than 35 years’ experience including 12 years of involvement in health education, training and research
• Ms Khudeja Amer Sharif: CEO of Shama Women’s Centre, with more than 30 years’ professional experience leading service improvement and programmes to address health inequalities.

We’re excited to be collaborating with experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds to develop and deliver research projects that have the potential to make a positive difference to patient safety.

We are working collaboratively with local, national and international health service partners and staff to guide policy and practice in improving organisational safety culture. We believe our approach helps to ‘close the gap’ between academic research and practice.

Our research includes:

1. Working with teams and groups across a wide range of different health and social care contexts, to understand different ways patient safety is understood and put it into practice.
2. Following the journey of patient safety guidance from where it is drafted at a national level to when it is implemented locally within a healthcare organisation. This helps us to design policies that connect with safety cultures in local settings.
3. Working to amplify the voices of health and social care staff from minority ethnic groups. The aim is to help them to feel safer in raising concerns about patient safety, which contribute to improving safety culture.

In addition to improving policy and practice in healthcare organisations, we’re dedicated to developing expertise in this area of research to help ensure developments continue in the future. This will help to ensure new health services and improvement researchers can continue to make a difference to patient safety policy and practice.

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