Patient safety is the backbone of our veterinary workplaces, whether they be clinical, pharmaceutical, training and education or otherwise. Often though, patient safety exists in the background as an undiscussed understanding. We forget all the complex systems at play, until it becomes essential to bring it back to the forefront, for example, when things don’t go as planned with a patient outcome.
Have you been in your workplace and considered a change you’d like to make to support patient safety? Or perhaps you attended a CPD event and came back with information about systems of working and want to share it with your workplace? Perhaps you’ve heard a colleague talking about psychological safety, and you want to learn more?
Have you ever considered that this makes you a patient safety champion?
The world of patient safety and human factors is vast, and there is plenty of information out there for us to learn, whether that be informal information collection, all the way up to a Masters in Patient Safety. For those of us immersed in this world, we often share that once seen it is something you cannot unsee!
Yet, once we start on this path, it can feel lonely or frustrating depending on how our passions are received. We might consider questions such as; am I alone in wanting to work on this? Is this the right workplace for me? Whose responsibility is it to work on patient safety?
If any of this resonates with you, we are going to share some first steps in gaining momentum in patient safety, so that you can move forward with your patient safety journey.
We like to remember the adage ‘you cannot know what you don’t know’.
As a personal anecdote the frustrations I always felt around workplaces were around the area of human factors, and yet, I didn’t know the field existed! Everyone cared about patient safety deeply, yet, we had working practices in place that made it really hard to ‘do the right thing’, and that often led to difficult communication, lacks in information sharing, and misunderstandings, all of which had an impact on patient care, and therefore safety.
Start workplace conversations; even a curious question about the areas you are interested in, with people you trust.. “have you heard about psychological safety?” will allow people to become aware of the field of patient safety and pique their interest. Perhaps it is a QI project you are desperate to start? Let people know!
Depending on the response you get when you are starting your workplace conversations, you’ll start to notice the people who are interested. They’ll be enthusiastic; they’ll come back with more information or questions. Starting with people you trust to share ideas with is great and then branch out. Perhaps you’ll find some common ground with someone else, even if it isn’t someone you normally click with.
Research shows that a tipping point of 25% leads to workplace change, so if you have 3 people on board out of a group of 12, the momentum is moving forwards.
Attending CPD based around human factors, patient safety, and non-technical skills in general is a great way to broaden your horizons, and to meet other people who value learning in these areas. They are likely to be your people!
We know that the veterinary sphere can feel quite small, and you will notice that familiar companies, people and themes will pop up when you are online, or at in person events.
We suggest joining networks that feel good to be a part of, it means you keep up to date with happenings and opportunities, and also you feel connected to something more than your own workplace, which can support your own momentum if at times within your workplace the pace is not as fast as you would like it to be. You also get to talk to people who may be open to sharing their experiences, which can support us in our work roles too.
We hope this might give some support to navigating the world of workplace change with patient safety at its heart.
If you are looking for a next step, VetLed and VetSafe have collaborated to create an in-person event this October, centred around ‘Patient Safety in action: Being a champion for safe patient care’. More information can be found here: The Veterinary Patient Safety Summit 2026