The Spanish Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality (MSSSI) promotes the Patient Safety Strategy of the National Health System (NHS), developed since 2005 in collaboration with the Health Regions and different stakeholders interested in this issue.

During the development of the strategy a national network was created around patient safety with all the stakeholders. This network allowed the collaboration and the institutional co-responsibility with the Health Regions in a fruitful way, the crucial contribution of professionals and their organizations, and the active participation of the patients´ associations.

The objectives of the strategy were initially aimed to the promotion of patient safety culture in the healthcare organizations, education and training in patient safety of the healthcare professionals, development of reporting and learning systems, implementation of safe clinical practices, involvement of patients and citizens, increasing the knowledge about the risk and factors associated to patient safety and the participation at international level.

After ten years of development, the update of the strategy was agreed with the Health Regions for the period 2015-2020, in order to have an instrument including an overview of what has been done previously and a framework to facilitate the decision-making about patient safety in the Spanish NHS

The patient safety strategy presented herein continues along the same line as that which has been being carried out to date, retaining the same strategic lines of action and incorporating new objectives and recommendations regarding aspects pending further development. The process of preparing this strategy has taken into account: the current recommendations of the international organizations, the data available from ten years of having carried out the patient safety strategy, the information and opinions provided by the scientific coordinators for the current strategy, the Health Regions, the health care professionals (through the scientific societies having wished to collaborate), the patients (through the NHS Citizen Health Schools Network) and other experts consulted. This strategy is the consensus on patient safety of those involved in the quality of the care provided by the National Health System.

Download document: Patient Safety Strategy for the National Health System 2015-2020 (PDF 3MB)